It – Director Andy Muschietti Talks Adapting Stephen King’s Novel

Friday will be the release of the newest adaptation of Stephen King’s IT. Early reviews for the film boast a near perfect mix of horror and humor as many who have seen the film deem it worthy of the source material. The film’s director, Andy Muschietti, recently spoke with Yahoo! Movies UK and was asked what the challenges were for adapting a fairly large novel into a film.

“First of all was the technical complexity of squeezing the story into a two-hour movie. First we parted the book in two, and we focussed on the kids’ section for the first movie. But then it’s still huge.”

From the reviews, it seems as if Muschietti has found a way to succeed where many directors have failed. Often times the trouble with adapting novels is the source material is too substantial do condense it down into a film and remain true to the novel. The alternative is to talk the studio into allowing a three hour plus movie to be made, which, unless you’re Peter Jackson, isn’t likely to happen.

RELATED: IT Review: A Funny, Heartwarming, Disturbing, Yet Rewarding Adaptation Of Stephen King’s Iconic Novel

With several main characters, it’s not easy to divide screen time. Muschietti spoke about another challenge of the filmmaking process, which was introducing the main characters while still being mindful of film’s pace and overall consistency.

“Mainly the process was about identifying the big emotional beats in the story and bringing them into a two-hour movie. Of course taking licenses structurally and story-wise to make it consistent with a two-hour movie, that’s from a technical point of view. Especially introducing so many characters; there are seven main characters, we have to introduce them.”

Taking everything into account, it appears as if Muschietti has brought justice to Stephen King’s beloved horror novel, and the powers that be have already wrapped up Muschietti to helm the sequel. The director has even stated the IT sequel will be his next project. With the film’s early positive reviews, and the second half of the novel left to be explored, Muschietti will be able to finish adapting one of the most popular horror novels. I haven’t watched a scary movie in theaters in quite a while, and IT seems like the perfect opportunity to do so.

IT creeps into theaters this Friday.

Are you one of the lucky people who have already seen IT? Let us know in the comments down below!

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Source: Yahoo! Movies UK

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