If you can make it through the first five minutes of It, congratulations: you’ve seen the scariest (and best and most gruesome) scene in the movie. Everything about it is just right, from the way director Andy Muschietti frames Pennywise in the sewer, to the ominous rain, to the way Bill Skarsgård, as the Dancing Clown, entices Georgie to join him with promises of popcorn and cotton candy. It’s good stuff, but for everyone who “watched” Pennywise take a bite out of Georgie through their hands, the It team has a surprise for you.
Included on the Blu-Ray and DVD release for It is an alternate version of the opening scene. No babies are devoured, no ’80s bullies descend into madness, and there are no hints for It: Chapter Two, but it’s something even better.
The people who made IT (2017) actually made a joke version of the Pennywise/Georgie scene. I don't think I've ever heard of a film doing a joke version of a scene and actually keeping it as a deleted scene. pic.twitter.com/RQhoHhFwiU
— Michael Edwards🍉 (@MEdwardsVA) January 15, 2018
Instead of Georgie floating, too, he takes his boat back from Pennywise. As the boy happily wanders back home, the clown mutters, “Oh, shit.” The more-or-less pleasant encounter is a far cry from what actually happened on the It set. “I wasn’t very friendly or goofy. I tried to maintain some sort of weirdness about the character, at least when I was in all the make-up,” Skarsgård said. “At one point, they set up this entire scene, and these kids come in, and none of them have seen me yet. Their parents have brought them in, these little extras, right? And then I come out as Pennywise, and these kids — young, normal kids — I saw the reaction that they had. Some of them were really intrigued, but some couldn’t look at me, and some were shaking. This one kid started crying.”
At least this scene has a happy ending (if you don’t watch the rest of It).
(Via The A.V. Club)
