‘IT: Chapter Two’ Writer Teases Ending Will Be Heartbreaking

In IT: Chapter Two, the characters we met in the first movie come together 27 years later to battle an evil threat that is tormenting their small town of Derry, Maine. The writer behind the sequel, Gary Dauberman, shared his excitement to work on the project while also hinting at the emotional impact of the film’s finale.

“Like I said with the first one, it’s really this embarrassment of riches. It was trying to do your best job of taking what Stephen King wrote so beautifully all those years ago and try to translate it to the script page,” Dauberman shared with SlashFilm. “For me it was just really fun to be able to revisit these characters and see what they’re up to 27 years later. There was a challenge trying to get all those character introductions and ‘here’s where we are so far’ which is fun to tackle. How can we find an elegant solution to introduce this many characters again to the audience?”

In the original novel and in the 1990 miniseries, the narrative takes place in the “present,” with the adult characters coming together to honor an oath they made as children, while using flashbacks to explore their various connections to one another. Director Andy Muschietti decided to fracture the timeline so that audiences can connect exclusively with the young characters in the first film, making for a more fulfilling emotional journey in the follow-up film.

“In the first one, they’re all together in school so you see them in a bunch but 27 years later, I don’t think it’s a spoiler they’re sort of scattered all over the country,” Dauberman noted. “So we see pieces of who they’ve become which I think is really exciting. Then of course it was great to see them return to Derry.”

The Losers’ Club reunites for the first time at a restaurant, making it a memorable scene for audiences in both the book and miniseries.

“The Jade of the Orient is such a defining and iconic scene in the book. That was something I remember as a thing I was writing towards,” the writer confessed. “It was like, ‘Okay, coming up is Jade of the Orient. That’s going to be super cool.’ It was a nice signpost to write towards which I dug.”

Writing the film wasn’t an entirely joyful experience, with Dauberman noting, “The ending I think will satisfy the audience and maybe break their hearts a little bit.”

IT: Chapter Two will land in theaters on September 6, 2019.

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[H/T SlashFilm]