STACK #179 Sept 2019

CINEMA FEATURE

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Adult cast (L to R) Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, James Ransone, Isaiah Mustafa and Jay Ryan

(Below right) Bill Skarsgård

STACK caught up with James McAvoy and director Andy Muschietti during a visit to the set of the highly anticipated horror sequel, IT Chapter Two . Words Gill Pringle THE END OF O nly two years have passed since Stephen King’s IT became a huge box office hit, but in terms of its hotly anticipated sequel, it’s 27 years later.

remember they made a pact, a blood oath, and they have to go back. “When they return to Derry, they don’t like it too much. It’s a journey of remembering not only all the events that happened in the movie we saw, but also the events that we didn’t see in the movie, and these events are real, even if they have repressed their memories.” If childhood fears are all about scary monsters in the dark then adult fears can run deeper, warns the Argentinian director, who first read King‘s seminal book when he was 14 years old. “It’s about trauma and buried memories; a

as Richie, and Bill Skarsgård reprising his creepy role as Pennywise. When STACK visits the set of IT Chapter Two in Toronto, filming on location in a Victorian university building, Muschietti tells us how he hopes to inject more humour into the sequel as a break from the unrelenting horror of its predecessor. Naturally the grown-up Losers have got as far away from Derry as possible and only Mike Hanlon – played by Chosen Jacobs as a kid and by Isaiah Mustafa as an adult – remains. “None of them really remembers what happened in 1989,” explains Muschietti. ”But when a scar appears on their hands, they

With the original set in 1989, the sequel time jumps to 2016 and our beloved “Losers” – a group of bullied kids who banded together to destroy a shape-shifting monster disguised as a clown – are now in their 40s. While director Andy Muschietti revisits the youthful Losers in his sequel, IT Chapter Two , they are now largely portrayed by grown-ups – Jessica Chastain and James McAvoy stepping into the shoes of Beverly and Bill; Bill Hader taking over from Stranger Things ’ Finn Wolfhard

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SEPTEMBER 2019

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