Here are some highlights of what Muschietti had to say about his approach to IT, the character of Pennywise, and the response he recently received from author Stephen King:

What I can tell you is that he is terrifying, and there was a lot of work involved in bringing a new version of that character to life. The work I did with Bill Skarsgård was great, and he was amazing and a very impressive, talented, sweet young man.

We tried to keep Bill away from the kids as much as possible, and there’s of course that first moment of confrontation, but I tried to delay that as much as possible. He was with them for the read-through, but then that was it, and all the kids were like, “It’s okay, he’s not going to scare us,” but that first day he got onto the stage, they fucking freaked out. I can’t even describe how scary he looked in person.

My first instinct was to basically be true to my own emotional experience with the book. I read it when I was a kid, so it was all about me trying to hit the core and the heart of the story, and the characters, too. I don’t want to spoil the plot, but you will notice that the story swerves into different directions. The arc of the Losers' Club is a bit wider in range, and you will notice there are things that happen to them in this movie that weren’t in the book or in the 1990 miniseries. So I think it’ll be a refreshing experience for fans, and a terrifying one, too.

One of the choices I made as a director was that I wanted to make the sense of dread that grows in Derry part of the dread of Pennywise. He’s not just a character that can shape-shift, his influence is all around. The anticipation of him is almost scarier than the actual Pennywise scares.

I grew up admiring Stephen King and reading his stories, and he’s a big part of me as a person and as a filmmaker. It was very, very humbling to get his response [to the film]. It was a tear-jerking moment.

dass die Beziehung von Bill und Georgie schon ganz herzlich gezeigt wird, aber ich bin ziemlich enttäuscht von Pennywise.
Das ist eher ein Horror mit der Bratpfanne als dieses unterschwellige, der kriechende Horror, den wir aus dem Buch kennen. Also ich hoffe das ist im Film anders dargestellt, als es der Trailer zeigte, ich bezweifle es aber.