It Chapter Two

IT Chapter Two is a 2019 American fantasy supernatural horror film and a sequel/second half to the 2017 film "It", both based on the 1986 novel by Stephen King. The film is directed by Andy Muschietti, returning from the first film, with a screenplay by Gary Dauberman. Set in 2016, 27 years after the events of the first film, it stars Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, and Bill Skarsgård, who returns as Pennywise. It is the second installment of the "It" film series and centers on the Losers Club reuniting from their various lives apart from each other to destroy It once and for all, though being apart means they have mostly forgotten the terror they endured together 27 years ago.
Talks for an "It" sequel began in February 2016. By September 2017, New Line Cinema announced that it would be released in September 2019, with Dauberman writing the script and Muschietti to direct. Principal photography began on June 19, 2018, at Pinewood Toronto Studios and on locations in and around Port Hope, Oshawa and Toronto, Ontario and wrapped on October 31, 2018. The film is produced by New Line Cinema, Double Dream, Vertigo Entertainment and Rideback, and distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.
"It Chapter Two" premiered in Los Angeles on August 26, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 6, 2019, in 2D, Dolby Cinema and IMAX. The film has grossed over $473million worldwide. It received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its acting and themes but criticism for its near-three hour runtime and weaker scares compared to its predecessor.
Plot.
In 2016, It has returned to Derry, Maine and is killing children again. The only member of the Losers Club currently in the town, Mike Hanlon, calls the other members, Bill Denbrough, Ben Hanscom, Beverly Marsh, Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak, and Stanley Uris to honor the promise they made 27 years ago to kill It if it came back. All of them travel back with hazy memories except for Stan, who commits suicide out of his fear of the creature. At a restaurant, Mike refreshes the Losers with memories before It torments them with hallucinations and Stan's suicide. Richie and Eddie decide to leave until Beverly reveals that she has had psychic visions of their deaths should they fail to fulfill their promise. Mike shows Bill, via a drug-induced vision, that the Native American "Ritual of Chüd" can stop It for good.
Mike explains that the ritual requires items from their past to be sacrificed. The members' searches of these involve traumatizing encounters with It, mostly its main form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown; one of these involves Pennywise taunting Richie about his sexuality, and another prompts Eddie to defend himself and for It to shrink and flee. Henry Bowers, whom It frees from a mental institution Henry was sent to after being arrested for murdering his father, also hunts the Losers. He attacks Eddie at the Losers' hotel, and then Mike at the library, but Richie kills him. The Losers rejoin Bill, who just failed to save a young boy named Dean from being killed by It, at the Neibolt House, talking him out of facing It alone.
After saving Richie, Ben, and Beverly from It, the group descends into a cavern beneath the sewers and perform the ritual in the remains of the meteor that brought It to Earth. The ritual traps the Deadlights in a sealing jar, but It emerges from the jar as a giant red balloon, which bursts, revealing It as a Pennywise-spider hybrid. Pennywise pressures Mike into revealing that It killed the Natives originally performing the ritual because their fears overtook them, a fact Mike had hidden. It attacks the Losers and places Bill, Ben, and Beverly in nightmarish hallucinations, which they escape once Bill releases his guilt over It's murder of his younger brother Georgie, and Beverly realizes Ben wrote the love letter. Mike stands up to Pennywise, only to almost get eaten, but Richie manages to distract It, getting caught in It's Deadlights. Eddie saves him, but is fatally impaled. After Eddie explains how he made It feel small earlier, the Losers mock Pennywise, calling It various names and insults and causing It to shrink. Mike rips out It's heart, which he and the Losers crush, finally killing It. The Losers are forced to leave Eddie, who died from his injuries, when It's cavern implodes, destroying the Neibolt House.
The remaining Losers return to their old swimming area and wash off from their confrontation with It, and join hands to comfort Richie as he mourns for Eddie. It's demise has also caused the scars on their hands to disappear. After the Losers part ways, Ben and Beverly get married, Richie returns to the kissing bridge where he had once carved his and Eddie's initials, Mike decides to move out of Derry and start a new life, and Bill begins writing his new story before receiving a call from Mike as he leaves Derry, learning that Stan sent them all posthumous letters. The letters reveal because Stan was too scared to face It, his suicide was intended to strengthen his friends against It. He asks the remaining Losers to "live life to the fullest potential."
Cast.
Other forms of It include Joan Gregson as Mrs. Kersh, an apparently sweet and gentle elderly woman, actually a monster who lives in Beverly's childhood home; Javier Botet as Hobo, a leper who encountered Eddie at the 29 Neibolt Street house, and also as The Witch, the monstrous form of Mrs. Kersh; Jackson Robert Scott as Georgie Denbrough, Bill's deceased younger brother; and Owen Teague as Patrick Hockstetter, a young hoodlum who was killed by Pennywise in the sewers in 1989. It also briefly appears without clown makeup, as his alias Bob Gray (also Skarsgård).
Additionally, Teach Grant portrays Henry Bowers, who terrorized the Losers Club in the summer of 1989 before he was incarcerated for killing his father while under It's influence. Nicholas Hamilton reprises his role as the young Henry Bowers. Molly Atkinson reprises her role as Sonia, Eddie's Munchausen syndrome by proxy-stricken mother, and also plays Eddie's wife Myra, who is very similar to Sonia. Xavier Dolan and Taylor Frey appear as Adrian Mellon and Don Hagarty, a gay couple who are attacked by a group of youths during a carnival before Mellon is killed by It, while Jake Weary appears as Webby, the leader of the youth gang who attacks Adrian and Don. Luke Roessler portrays Dean, a young boy who meets Bill near the storm drain where Georgie was killed in 1988, and is later killed by It at the Funland, while Ryan Kiera Armstrong appears as Victoria Fuller, a little girl with a large birthmark on her cheek, who is killed by It after he lures her to under the bleachers at a baseball game. Jess Weixler portrays Bill's wife Audra Denbrough (née Phillips), Will Beinbrink portrays Beverly's abusive husband Tom Rogan, and Martha Girvin appears as Stanley's wife Patty. Stephen Bogaert, Jake Sim, Logan Thompson, Joe Bostick and Megan Charpentier reprise their roles from the first film as Beverly's abusive father Alvin Marsh, Henry's friends Reginald "Belch" Huggins and Victor "Vic" Criss, pharmacist Mr. Keene, and Keene's daughter Gretta, respectively. Juno Rinaldi portrays the adult Gretta. Katie Lunman reprises her role as Betty Ripsom in a vocal capacity, in addition to portraying a second character, Chris Unwin, one of Webby's friends who participates in assaulting Adrian and Don.
Stephen King cameos as a pawn shop owner, the film's director Andy Muschietti cameos as a customer at the pharmacy, and filmmaker Peter Bogdanovich cameos as himself, the director of the film based on Bill's novel. Brandon Crane, who portrayed the young Ben in the 1990 miniseries adaptation, also makes a cameo appearance as a board member of Hanscom Architecture. Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro was sought for a cameo as the janitor that Ben encounters when fleeing from Pennywise. Despite nearly securing del Toro, he was not included in the final film. King's son and fellow author Joe Hill was originally envisioned to cameo as the younger version of the pawn shop owner in a flashback scene with young Bill and Beverly, but the scene was cut from the final draft of the screenplay. Maturin the Turtle was reported to be in the film. This did not happen, although a golden turtle statue can be seen in the adult Ben's home and a smaller one can be seen in a classroom scene.
Production.
Development.
On February 16, 2016, producer Roy Lee, in an interview with Collider, mentioned a second "It" film, remarking, "[Dauberman] wrote the most recent draft working with [Muschietti], so it's being envisioned as two movies."
On July 19, 2017, Muschietti revealed that production was set to begin in the spring of 2018, adding, "We'll probably have a script for the second part in January [2018]. Ideally, we would start prep in March. Part one is only about the kids. Part two is about these characters 27 years later as adults, with flashbacks to 1989 when they were kids."
On July 21, 2017, Muschietti spoke of looking forward to having a dialogue in the second film that does not exist within the first, stating, "... it seems like we're going to do it. It's the second half, it's not a sequel. It's the second half and it's very connected to the first one." Muschietti stated that two cut scenes from the first film will possibly be included in the second, one of which being the fire at the Black Spot from the book.
On September 25, 2017, New Line Cinema announced that the sequel would be released on September 6, 2019, with Gary Dauberman writing the script and Andy Muschietti returning to direct. Dauberman would later leave the project to write and direct "Annabelle Comes Home", while Jason Fuchs was brought in as his replacement.
Casting.
In an interview in July 2017, the child actors from the first film were asked which actors they would choose to play them in the sequel. Sophia Lillis chose Jessica Chastain and Finn Wolfhard chose Bill Hader, both of whom would end up cast in those roles.
In September 2017, Muschietti and his sister mentioned that Chastain would be their top choice to play the adult version of Beverly Marsh. In November 2017, Chastain herself expressed interest in the project. Finally, in February 2018, Chastain officially joined the cast to portray the character, making the film her second collaboration with Muschietti after "Mama". By April 2018, Hader and James McAvoy were in talks to join the cast to play adult versions of Richie Tozier and Bill Denbrough, respectively. In May 2018, James Ransone, Jay Ryan, and Andy Bean joined the cast to portray adult versions of Eddie Kaspbrak, Ben Hanscom, and Stanley Uris, respectively.
In June 2018, Isaiah Mustafa joined as the adult version of Mike Hanlon, while Xavier Dolan and Will Beinbrink were also cast as Adrian Mellon and Tom Rogan, respectively. Later, Teach Grant was cast to play the adult version of Henry Bowers, played by Nicholas Hamilton, and Jess Weixler was also cast, as Bill's wife. This is the second collaboration between McAvoy, Chastain, Hader, Weixler and Beinbrink after "The Disappearance of Eleanor Rigby". In September 2018, it was revealed that Javier Botet would appear in the film. He played It forms, Hobo the Leper and The Witch.
Filming.
Principal photography on the film began on June 19, 2018, at Pinewood Toronto Studios. The sewer system set was constructed at Pinewood, while the actual grate is located in North York. Much of the location work was done in and around Port Hope during summer 2018, as the town stood in for the fictional Derry, Maine; signs and decor were changed as necessary. The Town Hall exterior was used as the Derry Library. Some exterior shots of the hotel were filmed at the town's Hotel Carlyle.
Some interiors were filmed at a 1902 mansion in Toronto, Cranfield House, while homes in the city, and in Oshawa and Pickering, were used as exteriors. An old mansion set was built for exteriors of the Pennywise home, and later burned, in Oshawa. The synagogue in the film was actually the Congregation Knesseth Israel in Toronto. Derry High School exteriors were filmed at the Mount Mary Retreat Centre in Ancaster, Ontario. Other locations used by the production included the Elora Quarry Conservation Area, the Scottish Rite in Hamilton, Ontario, Audley Park in Ajax, Ontario, Rouge Park in Scarborough, Toronto (as The Barrens) and The Mandarin Restaurant in Mississauga.
Filming concluded in early November 2018 after 86 days of production.
Post-production.
The visual effects were provided by Atomic Arts and Method Studios. They were supervised by Brooke Lyndon-Stanford, Justin Cornish, and Josh Simmonds, as well as Nicholas Brooks as the Production Supervisor, with help from Cubica, Lola VFX, Make VFX, Rodeo FX and Soho VFX. The teenage actors were digitally de-aged to match their respective ages during filming of the first film.
Music.
On March 29, 2019, it was announced that English composer, conductor, and pianist Benjamin Wallfisch, who had previously composed original scores for films such as "Hidden Figures", "Blade Runner 2049", and "Shazam!", was set to compose the soundtrack for "It Chapter Two", marking this as the second time the composer has worked with director Andy Muschietti, after previously composing the soundtrack for the first film "It" (2017). The soundtrack features 45 original tracks that were released on August 30, 2019.
According to Wallfisch, the score for "It Chapter Two" features a larger orchestra and choir than previously and draws on both themes from the first film's soundtrack with "more scale and ambition — to reflect the scope of the film", as well as creates new themes to reflect the characters development over the past 27 years.
Release.
"It Chapter Two" had its world premiere at the Regency Village Theater in Los Angeles, California on August 26, 2019, and was theatrically released in the United States on September 6, 2019 by Warner Bros. Pictures.
Marketing.
The first image of the adult versions of the Losers' Club was released on July 2, 2018, as principal photography began. The first teaser poster of the film was released on October 31, 2018. Footage from the film was shown at the CinemaCon on April 2, 2019. A second teaser poster was released on May 9, 2019, along with a teaser trailer. On July 17, 2019, the second poster and the final trailer were released at the San Diego Comic-Con. The studio spent a total of $95 million promoting the film worldwide.
Home media.
The film was released in a digital format on November 19, 2019. A release on DVD, Blu-ray, and 4K was on December 10, 2019 in the United States.
Reception.
Box office.
"It Chapter Two" grossed $211.6 million in the United States and Canada, and $261.5 million in other territories, for a worldwide total of $473.1million. "Deadline Hollywood" calculated the net profit of the film to be $169million, when factoring together all expenses and revenues.
In the United States and Canada, the film was projected to gross $90–100million from 4,570 theaters in its opening weekend, and the week of its release broke Fandango's record for most advance tickets sold by a horror film. The film made $37.4million in its first day, including $10.5million from Thursday night previews, the second-highest total for both a September opening and horror film, behind the first film's $13.5million. It went on to debut to $91million, also the second-best ever for a horror film and a September release, while being over $30million less than the first film. The lower debut was attributed to a more mixed critical reception, as well as the nearly three-hour runtime, which exhibitors said curbed business. It made $40.7million in its second weekend, retaining the top spot, before making $17.2million in its third weekend and being dethroned by newcomer "Downton Abbey".
Critical response.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 62% based on 375 reviews, with an average rating of 6.1/10. The website's critical consensus reads, ""It Chapter Two" proves bigger doesn't always mean scarier for horror sequels, but a fine cast and faithful approach to the source material keep this follow-up afloat." On Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, the film has a score of 58 out of 100, based on 52 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews." Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale, the same as the first film, while those at PostTrak gave it an overall positive score of 76% and a 56% "definite recommend."
Writing for the "Chicago Sun-Times", Richard Roeper praised the production design and cast, but said the film was not as scary as the first, specifying, "For all of Muschietti's visual flourishes and with the greatly talented Bill Skarsgård again delivering a madcap, disturbingly effective, all-in performance as the dreaded Pennywise, "It Chapter Two" had a relatively muted impact on me." "Variety"s Peter DeBruge wrote, "The clown is back, and the kids have grown up in part two of Stephen King's monster novel, which inspires an overlong, but suitably scary sequel," while Christy Lemire of "RogerEbert.com" gave the film two-and-a-half out of four stars, stating that ""It Chapter Two" can be a sprawling, unwieldy mess—overlong, overstuffed and full of frustrating detours—but its casting is so spot-on, its actors have such great chemistry and its monster effects are so deliriously ghoulish that the film keeps you hooked."
Katie Rife of "The A.V. Club" gave the film a grade of "C+," praising Hader's performance but summarizing, "What a shame, then to build this beautiful stage, populate it with talented actors and high-level craftspeople, and then drop them all through the trap door of plodding humor and scattershot plotting." Aja Romano of "Vox" called the film "well-made and entertaining," but criticized what she termed the "lack of chemistry" between members of the adult cast, and wrote that the film "muddles [the] message" of the novel on which it is based. Rich Juzwiak of Jezebel gave the film a negative review, calling it "meandering" and "a movie that has no sense of its rules."
Future.
In September 2019, Skarsgård spoke of the possibility of a third installment, saying, "It would have to be the right type of approach to it. The book ends where the second movie ends, so that is the final chapter of this story. There is this interesting aspect of going back in time before all this happened. There might be a story there that might be worth exploring. Obviously that would be a story that's not in the book, it would be a freestanding story, but obviously within the same universe. So, there might be something interesting out of it. I think it would be fun."
Two months later, Dauberman discussed in an interview of the possibility of a third film, saying, "I do think it's possible. Anything in the Stephen King Universe interests me, but there's only so much of the story we could tell in the two movies. There are definitely elements of the novel you could expand on and make its own movie. It's just a question of whether or not people want to see it. I do think It was on this planet for a very, very, very long time and that's a lot of bloodshed and a lot of stories to tell and I think you could do that for sure."