Jessica Chastain Interested in Joining ‘IT’ Sequel

Slated to hit theaters in 2019 is the sequel to this year’s IT, which will take place 27 years after the events of the first film. Jessica Chastain is one name regularly thrown around to play an adult version of Sophia Lillis, with Chastain recently confirming to ScreenRant that she’d happily take on the part.

“Well, I love Andy and [producer] Barbara [Muschietti],” Chastain confessed. “I worked with them on Andy’s directorial debut, you know, his film, Mama. His first film. And you know, Barbara is one of my best friends so…We’ll see…Listen, of course, I want to work… they’re my friends. They’re like my family. Anything that they’re doing I want to be a part of, so I hope we can make it happen.”

In Stephen King‘s original novel, a group of kids bands together to take on a monstrous entity that’s lurking their small town of Derry, ME. These kids, dubbing themselves the “Losers’ Club,” confront the entity, seemingly destroying it. After 27 years, they must reconnect when they realize the entity is back to torment the town once again.

The story was previously adapted into a two-part miniseries in 1990, which jumped back and forth in the timeline to showcase the characters as both kids and adults. This year’s IT, however, focused solely on the characters as kids, with the next film slated to focus on the adults while also having flashbacks to their childhood interspersed.

Ever since the casting of Lillis as Beverly, rumors have circulated about Chastain potentially getting involved somewhere down the line. The biggest reason for these rumors came from the physical similarities between Lillis and Chastain, in addition to Lillis often saying she admired Chastain’s work.

The history between the Muschiettis and Chastain only offer more evidence that a collaboration is imminent, although the future of the project is unclear.

When speaking with Deadline, Barbara addressed a rumor that a scene featuring Chastain had already been shot. Muschietti revealed, “Nothing happened. You know, we wanted to keep surprises for the second part, that may never happen, but God knows we really want to do it. So you know nothing happened and I mean I was going to, you know, have to…I can’t bite my tongue about this. We would love for Jess to play her. I think one of the first things that we noticed when we saw Sophia [Lillis] come into the room was, my gosh, you look like her. It’s a strange kind of connection but we will see. We will see.”

Stay tuned for more details about the future of the IT sequel.

[H/T ScreenRant]