Pleasant nightmares: today marks the release of Andy Muschietti’s adaptation of the Stephen King novel It. (It’s fine.) The book was previously adapted into a mini-series in 1990, starring Rocky Horror Picture Show icon Tim Curry in the role of Pennywise, a sadistic inter-dimensional being disguised as a clown who tortures a group of childhood friends, manipulating them with their own deepest insecurities. Bill Skarsgard — yes, part of the famous Skarsgard family — takes over the role of Pennywise in the updated film. While we look forward to seeing how the new movie compares to the Curry-starring adaptation, it’s time to revisit the 1990 release with a few facts about its production.
Filmmaker George A. Romero (who previously worked with King on Creepshow) almost directed It, but had to drop out due to a scheduling conflict: he was producing the 1990 remake of his classic Night of the Living Dead.
Stephen King’s novel is 1,138 pages, so a lot of material from the book didn’t make the final script.
Roddy McDowall (Funny Lady) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange) were considered for the role of Pennywise, which eventually went to Tim Curry.
On the creation of Pennywise’s look:
Tim Curry was reluctant to take the role of Pennywise initially because he didn’t relish the thought of being buried under so much makeup. When he played Darkness in Legend (1985), it was a difficult and demanding role, and the hours in makeup was still fresh in his mind. To compromise, [director] Tommy Lee Wallace minimized the amount of makeup on Curry, and a lot wasn’t necessary anyway because Curry’s performance was so strong.
The shape of Pennywise’s head is based on Lon Chaney’s makeup in Phantom of the Opera.
To maintain a realistic sense of fear, Curry wasn’t exactly warm and welcoming to his fellow cast members. From actress Emily Perkins, who played a young Beverly Marsh:
Tim would sit in his chair chain-smoking in his make-up. Whenever the kid actors got too close, he would grin at us with his horribly pointed teeth. He really tried to intimidate us, because he wanted the fear to be real in our performances. He didn’t make any effort to be nice, at least not to me!
Director Tommy Lee Wallace didn’t read the King novel before shooting. From a 2015 interview:
To this day, I haven’t met Stephen King in person. After finishing It, I wrote him a letter wondering about his reaction. He wrote me back a cordial and complimentary note. He shrugged off the controversies, and let me know how much he liked the show. Like me, he would have wished for more time and money for special effects and opticals, but overall he was very positive.
More on that crazy animation scene with Pennywise:
The shower scene with Pennywise where we comes out of the drain was done with replacement animation. It’s an animation technique you can use when you’re shooting effects single frame. We sculpted every frame one at a time, and the hole grew bigger and bigger. It’s very time consuming, and rarely done anymore except for stop motion movies. What’s good about it is that it looks like it’s really there, and not just 0s and 1s.
How the cast and crew felt about the final showdown with . . . that spider thing:
The spider at the climax was a fully operable puppet. It was the last scene to be filmed. John Ritter was disappointed that the final battle had to be fought with a puppet and not Tim Curry, because he felt Pennywise was the real villain of the show, and not some fake spider. The novel’s ending was also much too cerebral to tackle on a television budget. Tommy Lee Wallace also felt disappointment with the movie’s ending. The way he imagined it was different to the way it turned out, because they didn’t have the money to do it as it was storyboarded.
In case you were wondering about the sewer and if you can visit it:
Since It first aired, there has been much speculation as to the sewer building pump house. Fans wanted to know the location of the real building and rumor was that it was a built set that had been immediately torn down after filming. The real building is actually the old Buntzen Lake Hydro Plant in Canada, which looked vaguely different in 1990 but after it shut down in the early 2000’s now retains a more faded look. People can go up to it, but are prohibited from going inside without authorization.
Filming took three months and was set in Vancouver (New Westminster), British Columbia, Canada. Locations included Stanley Park, Beaver Lake, and Saint Thomas Aquinas High School Convent in North Vancouver.
“It” was recently released on Blu-ray . It is also available for digital rental or purchase.