It’s been far from a Midas Touch year for the domestic box office, but holy moly do we love us some clown trauma. Andy Muchietti’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It has racked up obscene amounts of money alongside positive reviews since debuting (you’ll gloat too, etc.), but the clown of the moment says there was one upsetting Pennywise chunklet that didn’t make it into the finished product.
It star Bill Skarsgard mentioned the cut portion during an appearance on Variety‘s Playback podcast. Skasrgard says the chopped scene was from a throwback that goes a smidge further back than the ’80s. Also, no, it’s not that scene.
“There was a scene we shot that was a flashback from the 1600s, before Pennywise [was Pennywise],” Skarsgard told Playback. “The scene turned out really, really disturbing. And I’m not the clown. I look more like myself. It’s very disturbing, and sort of a backstory for what It is, or where Pennywise came from. That might be something worth exploring in the second one. The idea is the ‘It’ entity was dormant for thousands and thousands of years. The [flashback] scene hints on that. ”
The non-concrete dynamics of the Pennywise character are something Skarsgard digs about the villain in this brand of storytelling.
“The book is very abstract and metaphysical about what it means to exist and the idea of fantasy and imagination and all of these things,” he said. “I think that could be cool to explore as well. It’s like, what is Pennywise? He only exists in the imagination of children. If you don’t believe him to be real then he might not be real. There’s an interesting aspect to explore there.”
There’s no set release date in place for the upcoming sequel to It, although when it does arrive the follow-up will go even darker. Sounds like a wonderfully uncomfortable time!
(Via Variety)
