Stephen King’s influence on Netflix’s Stranger Things is pretty obvious. (He’s a fan.) Take a dash of Stand by Me‘s friendship (which is based on his novella The Body), a sprinkle of Firestarter‘s young girl with supernatural powers, and a cup of The Mist‘s alternate dimensions, and boom, you’ve got the biggest hit of the summer. There’s also a lot of It in Stranger Things‘ DNA, which makes sense, considering there literally wouldn’t be a Stranger Things without It.
Co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer told the Hollywood Reporter they requested to direct the It remake, long before director Andrés Muschietti was attached. “We asked, and that’s why we ended up doing [Stranger Things], because we’d asked Warner Brothers,” Matt said. “I was like, ‘Please,’ and they were like, ‘No.’ This was before Cary Fukunaga. This was a long time ago.” As Ross explains it:
When we asked to do it was before, then he got on it afterwards because he’s established. So, he got on it and we were excited just because we’re huge fans of what he does, and one of the few people who hasn’t made a bad movie. So, that was exciting to us, but also, we were seeing trailers for True Detective, we’re like, “I kind of want to see. How do you do It in two hours? Even if you’re separating the kids, how do you do that right?” You don’t really fall in love with them the same way you’re going to when I read that book. So, how much more excited would I be if Cary Fukunaga was doing that for HBO or he was doing that for Netflix? (Via)
Pennywise has consistently haunted my life since I saw the ABC miniseries at a too-young age, and later read King’s novel, but he also (indirectly) (but also totally directly) inspired the Duffer Brothers to make Stranger Things. That doesn’t make up for the years of terror, but it’s a start. At least until Stranger Things season two is all about creepy clowns, or something.
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
