It had been reported earlier this month that Stephen King himself had personally requested an “all-new scene” be added to IT: Chapter Two, but as it turns out, that’s not quite true. In a new chat with Collider, director Andy Muschietti clears up the “broken communication” that resulted in those reports, clarifying King’s level of involvement in the creative process.
“I just shared the script with him because I wanted to know what he thought about it, [if] he has any kind of notes and he very generously said, ‘Look, just take this as what it is. It’s not a mandate or anything. But this is like the couple of things I would like to see in the movie.’ And that’s what it was,” Muschietti told the site.
He continued, “There were things that were already on their way to land in the movie. He’s a fan of Paul Bunyan….specifically Paul Bunyan chasing young Richie. So that was great because I was a little bit on the fence with that and when Steve said, ‘Can we see it in the movie?’ I was like, ‘Yes, of course!’
“And the other one was the rolling standpipe at the end of the book when Derry collapses into the sinkhole and it all floods. There is a scene where the standpipe basically collapses and starts rolling down the hill, and for some reason, it’s one of Stephen’s favorite episodes in the book. Well, we couldn’t go that far because I basically wanted to end the movie on a more emotional note, more intimate, more about the feelings of this group of characters. And also making this huge destruction scene would have sucked probably half the budget of visual effects. I didn’t want to go through that.”
Pennywise returns to theaters on September 6.