Stephen King's "IT" remake has found a writer - Part 3

[Fallen Angel]

Liked the movie a lot although not as scary as I thought it might be. Good decision by the studio/producers/director to focus on the kids fully in the first movie.

 

[BH/HHH]

I'm quite forgiving with the CGI, infact I generally am with most things as I think people are often harsh on these aspects of films and TV shows.

In terms of the CG with IT some scenes it was the only way to do it. So I can forgive that and for me personally the scares with IT weren't in the reveals. For instance Pennywise never scared me but that's the way my mind works. What scared me was the tension in the film.

 

[dark_knight08]

Just got back from IT and I must say that I admire the acting, direction and faithfulness to the first half of the novel. Furthermore, I consider the movie one of the best modern Stephen King adaptations to date. I definitely can't wait to see what IT: Chapter 2 brings.

 

[terry78]

I feel like they were going more for Pennywise being a metaphor for the fear and torment kids deal with growing up hence him not being a major star of the piece so to speak. The story is ultimately about these kids dealing with life with an evil entity there to provide the catalyst and ultimately forcing them to come together again as adults.

 

[BaelaTargaryen]

http://deadline.com/2017/09/stephen-king-it-home-again-box-office-1202163667/

Saturday pulled in roughly $45M after Friday night’s $51M (which included that $13.5M preview). The box office for It would be even higher if the Houston and Florida markets weren’t affected by two of this nation’s strongest hurricanes on record.

 

[Ninjablade]

Yeah that article is on point. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but this movie just missed the mark for me. Take the Georgie scene... the film improves on the miniseries by having a very charismatic and cute little guy play Georgie, okay good... but when we get to the end of the scene Pennywise's face morphs into something from Jim Carrey's The Mask, and in the very next shot Georgie's arm is gone. The way that was cut together felt off to me.

This sums up a big issue I had with the film as well. Georgie's interaction with Pennywise is lengthy very tense, building up to the end. I loved the whole beginning, but all of a sudden a CG Pennywise shows up taking me out of it for a second. Even the next shot of Georgie crawling away looked very bad, it really stood out among some other great cinematography. Sure I was uncomfortable watching it, but only because it was a very young child being attacked. Had it been someone the Losers' age or older, I really would't have cared what was going on.

My main problem with Pennywise is that he doesn't get enough time to really interact with the main characters. He shows up, his face morphs into some stuff, and that's it. In the miniseries, almost every time he shows up he actually talks to his (future) victim and messes with them a little bit. Some of the stuff in the crackhouse was good because he came face to face with the kids and messed with them.

Beyond that, I think it's so weird that people are blatantly ignoring the weird and totally off CG that was used on Pennywise in this film. I don't find Pennywise running toward the camera while it does a weird zoom thing on his face to be scary. Give me more physical stuff of him actually standing there, in the shot. That could just be my expectations of the character not aligning with everyone else's.

The CG really took me out of the film towards the beginning. Almost all the monsters the kids saw could've easily been real. Not only that, any time Pennywise did show up, you'd see him for 2 seconds and then the scene would end. It came across as like the director trying to remind you that Pennywise is still the villain. I think out of all the individual moments where the kids are being scared, Eddie's was the best because he actually interacted with Pennywise and it seemed like Pennywise actually wanted to lure him into the house. Everyone else he kind of chased away for a couple of seconds and then disapeared.

I find everything after they go into the house more interesting and scary because here they are finally interacting with the thing that is trying to scare them. It also makes Pennywise a character as you can tell he's getting more and more frustrated that they don't believe in him,[BLACKOUT]"I'm not real enough for you Billy? I was real enough for Georgie!"[/BLACKOUT]. Only thing is you don't really care because he hasn't really been interacting with any of the kids beforehand. Of course Georgie thought you were real, you talked to him for 2 minutes.

Bill really shines when he gets to talk to them. His scene with Bev in the sewers is great because we can see his performance. Him with the kids in the kitchen of the house is scary because he's doing stuff that is truly scary for them. Just wish there was more of this in the first half. I felt the movie never lingered on any really scary moments, they seemed more thrilling than anything.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

https://***********/BORReport/status/906890232036917248

BoxOfficeReport.com
@BORReport

IT debuted with an estimated $117.15M this weekend.

An estimated $7.0M of the $117.15M opening weekend gross for IT was from IMAX.

 

[Heretic]

Again some of the stuff you guys are criticizing for not being scary are things that I laughed at...you know...because he's a clown...and clowns look silly and do silly things. I'd be shocked if it wasn't an intentional decision to blend cheesiness and silliness with what are otherwise scary Horror movie scenes.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

https://***********/BORReport/status/906894551897456640

BoxOfficeReport.com
@BORReport

IT debuted with an estimated $62.0M internationally. Global total is $179.2M.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

According to BOM

Fri - 51 million
Sat - 45.65 million
Sun - 20.5 million (-55.1%)

Damn, Hurricane Irma and NFL hit hard. Sunday is deflated as hell. Big drop. I did expect a drop around 50% but this is even more severe. I hope the actuals are better tomorrow.

 

[Drizzle]

It's still pretty damn impressive for a movie with a $35 million budget. I can also see it having great legs.

 

[terry78]

It made its profit, so hey. The second chapter was guaranteed regardless of how much it made since they have a full story to tell.

 

[Hurm...]

This sums up a big issue I had with the film as well. Georgie's interaction with Pennywise is lengthy very tense, building up to the end. I loved the whole beginning, but all of a sudden a CG Pennywise shows up taking me out of it for a second. Even the next shot of Georgie crawling away looked very bad, it really stood out among some other great cinematography. Sure I was uncomfortable watching it, but only because it was a very young child being attacked. Had it been someone the Losers' age or older, I really would't have cared what was going on.



The CG really took me out of the film towards the beginning. Almost all the monsters the kids saw could've easily been real. Not only that, any time Pennywise did show up, you'd see him for 2 seconds and then the scene would end. It came across as like the director trying to remind you that Pennywise is still the villain. I think out of all the individual moments where the kids are being scared, Eddie's was the best because he actually interacted with Pennywise and it seemed like Pennywise actually wanted to lure him into the house. Everyone else he kind of chased away for a couple of seconds and then disapeared.

I find everything after they go into the house more interesting and scary because here they are finally interacting with the thing that is trying to scare them. It also makes Pennywise a character as you can tell he's getting more and more frustrated that they don't believe in him,[BLACKOUT]"I'm not real enough for you Billy? I was real enough for Georgie!"[/BLACKOUT]. Only thing is you don't really care because he hasn't really been interacting with any of the kids beforehand. Of course Georgie thought you were real, you talked to him for 2 minutes.

Bill really shines when he gets to talk to them. His scene with Bev in the sewers is great because we can see his performance. Him with the kids in the kitchen of the house is scary because he's doing stuff that is truly scary for them. Just wish there was more of this in the first half. I felt the movie never lingered on any really scary moments, they seemed more thrilling than anything.

I agree with all of this I still think it's a good film, but there's a lot of room for improvement in the sequel.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

It's still pretty damn impressive for a movie with a $35 million budget. I can also see it having great legs.

It's not just impressive, 'IT's abso-f**king-lutely legendary. 'IT' is an 'R' rated, Horror movie (inherently front-loadaed) and a Stephen King adaptation (dedicated fanbase further front-loading) opening in 'September' with schools back in session and the movie did not release in '3D' so no case of inflated ticket prices increasing the OW and all of this against a Category 4-5 Hurricane, which also happens to be one of the biggest ever in history of USA with one State almost totally shut down and we can add the NFL games opening on top of all these heavy odds. All the odds were stacked against 'IT'. But 'IT' came out with flying colors breaking records left and right. 'IT' is right up there with 'American Sniper' and 'Deadpool' as the greatest OW story of all time (I would not count the 150 million + budgeted behemoths in this). I think 'IT' might be the greatest story, already way better than 'Deadpool' and slightly edging American Sniper'.

 

[KaijuDude1992]

Amazing numbers for It, but the studio is seriously overestimating that Sunday drop IMO. A film that only drops 10% on a Saturday isn't going to drop 55% the next day, especially with WOM being as good as it is. I know there is stuff to consider like the Hurricane and Football, but this an EVENT film and people are going to see it regardless of everything else going on.

 

[Primal Slayer]

It's still pretty damn impressive for a movie with a $35 million budget. I can also see it having great legs.

Whew! I didn't realize the budget was that small, for some reason I had it in my mind that it was $135 million lol which confused the hell out of me. But thats great!

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Amazing numbers for It, but the studio is seriously overestimating that Sunday drop IMO. A film that only drops 10% on a Saturday isn't going to drop 55% the next day, especially with WOM being as good as it is. I know there is stuff to consider like the Hurricane and Football, but this an EVENT film and people are going to see it regardless of everything else going on.

It does seem that WB is underestimating 'IT' big time because it's by far the biggest drop in the top 15 with Annabelle 2 (49.7%) and WW (49.5%) being the close yet distant 2. 'IT' actually increased from the true Friday (21.7%) which is almost unprecedented for Horror movies so yeah, WB is probably low-balling 'IT's Sunday.

 

[Ninjablade]

I agree with all of this I still think it's a good film, but there's a lot of room for improvement in the sequel.

Oh me too. I don't want anyone to mistake my criticisms as me disliking the film, I had a blast watching and think it was great, in my top 5 of the year. I just feel everything surrounding the horror aspects is where the movie excels, but when it cuts back to them, it stumbles in that first half.

Stand out moment of this would be when [BLACKOUT]Pennywise appears eating Georgie's arm to Mike [/BLACKOUT]. It's some terrifying imagery, but it's placement in the film had me scratching my head because it comes out of nowhere. Felt like it was only in there to remind you Pennywise is in the movie, and to give another safe to [BLACKOUT]Mike [/BLACKOUT] even though it would've fit [BLACKOUT]Bill[/BLACKOUT] more.

 

[FunkMiller]

So, I really, really enjoyed a majority of this movie. Thought The Loser's Club were done perfectly, and the Pennywise stuff was excellent too. Entirely understand why they left a lot of stuff out due to the run time.

But, much like the mini-series, they fumbled the ending again. I get why they don't go as all in as the book does with the climax of the children's story, but to completely cut out [BLACKOUT]The Ritual Of Chud, the Macroverse, The Turtle, The Deadlights[/BLACKOUT] etc. etc. was a really big shame for me.

Okay, yes, if they get to it in the sequel that'll go some way to redress the balance, but I do feel like they didn't have the balls to actually depict IT as it should be depicted. I know budgetary reasons are important, but to literally cut the whole thing? It fundamentally changes the story for the worse IMO. They could - and should - have at least brushed the surface, given us a hint of what's really going on with Pennywise, and then built on it in the sequel.

As it stands, it's a 7/10 for me. I'd imagine for non-book viewers it's more like an 8 or 9.

 

[Incarnadine]

It does seem that WB is underestimating 'IT' big time because it's by far the biggest drop in the top 15 with Annabelle 2 (49.7%) and WW (49.5%) being the close yet distant 2. 'IT' actually increased from the true Friday (21.7%) which is almost unprecedented for Horror movies so yeah, WB is probably low-balling 'IT's Sunday.

Definitely lowballed. I think a lot of the Hurricane effect has already been factored in as the evacuation was in full swing yesterday as well as high winds. Is the number of theaters closed there today really significantly more than yesterday? Probably not.

If anything yesterday was probably a few million lower than it might have been if it wasn't for the storm(s).

 

[terry78]

I think regarding his true form they do give us a tease towards the end but they ain't gonna blow their wad so to speak due to the next flick probably being forced to ramp up the CG.

 

[The Joker]

As it stands, it's a 7/10 for me. I'd imagine for non-book viewers it's more like an 8 or 9.

As a huge fan of the book, and Stephen King in general, it's a 9/10 for me. The changes worked because they still kept the core essence of the characters and the story.

 

[moviedoors]

It's better than the book.

 

[Blitzkrieg]

Definitely lowballed. I think a lot of the Hurricane effect has already been factored in as the evacuation was in full swing yesterday as well as high winds. Is the number of theaters closed there today really significantly more than yesterday? Probably not.

If anything yesterday was probably a few million lower than it might have been if it wasn't for the storm(s).

Yup. Even Deadline who are more conservative about these final total estimations thinks that WB are definitely trying to leave room for improvement unless I'm misinterpreting this excerpt from their updated article

http://deadline.com/2017/09/stephen-king-it-home-again-box-office-1202163667/

Well, this movie has certainly pumped up the industry. At what looks to be a $123M to $124M opening early this AM while Warner Bros. is hedging to go against all other studio estimates with $117.1M.

 

[samsnee]

Saw it...loved it. I'm a huge Horror fan...but kind of difficult to please (I didn't really even like Lights Out or The Conjuring 2 or Ouija: Origin of Evil...all of which got a bunch of praise). This just had a ton of heart...great atmosphere that was scary throughout (instead of not scary at all for the first hour like many Horror films)...the kids all seemed genuine. Pennywise was incredible. It was like watching the first ANOES for the first time and seeing an iconic new slasher killer. Loved the effect of the water coming out of his mouth when he spoke...and the "bad" CGI didnt bother me because its a freaking clown...I think it was intentional. It was even pretty darn funny.

Oddly enough...my favorite scene was

Spoiler

In the library where Ben was looking through the old photo album and the librarian was off in the back of the room...out of focus...looking creepy as all get out, staring at him with this evil look. It wasn't a blatant scare...in fact...most of the people I saw the film with didnt even notice it (I went in a group of 12). But something about that freaked me out because it was like the evil could be anywhere and anyone.

I definitely noticed the librarian behind him. The way she was standing with her arms down made me think it was really Pennywise watching him. Thought for sure we'd see him get closer and closer.