‘IT: Chapter 3’ – Will We See A Pennywise Prequel?

At the top of Stephen King’s ground-breaking horror is his 1987 classic, IT, which has just seen a big screen resolution with IT: Chapter 2. September 6th saw the two-part saga come to a close for audiences as the Losers Club we met in 1988 resurfaces in 2016 to defeat the evil entity that haunted their very lives, an entity known as Pennywise The Dancing Clown. Overcoming their fears and traumas, the Losers finally defeat the demonic clown once and for all and are able to leave Derry, Maine behind for good. Shut and closed. Or is it?

Director Andy Muschietti has spoken at great lengths about how the story of the original novel is over and done with, resolved with the latest chapter and that there’s no real desire to mess with that conclusion to the Losers. However, something he’s been keen to add on in every single interview is intriguing. In an interview with IO9 back in August, Muschietti was quick to add on another aspect of the IT story that wasn’t delved into deeply within the film, something that could be a backdoor into something greater.

As stated by him: “Mythology is something that always has opportunities to explore. It has been on Earth for millions of years. He’s been in contact with humans for hundreds of years, every 27 years. So you can imagine the amount of material. It’s always exciting to think of eventually exploring this mythology, It’s very exciting. But, for now, there’s nothing on the table.”

Both Andy and Barbara Muschietti have been pretty straightforward on the fact that there’s no definite talks for an IT: Chapter 3, but his comments do leave some intriguing ideas on what there is left to explore. We can assume that Muschietti is talking about the extended Macroverse associated with the original story, along with the many supernatural and often quoted buzzword that might as well not mean anything anymore, Lovecraftian elements that make up the backstory of Pennywise in the original novel, something that neither adaptation has really set out to explore all too much.

To break it down a bit (and by the way, spoilers for the original novel follow from this point on, so please watch at your own risk. You’ve been warned, and I hate to repeat myself) Stephen King’s IT, while being a fairly straightforward horror story about children undergoing a nightmarish scenario, also involves a lot of otherworldly concepts; the main creature, Pennywise, is actually a manifestation that IT “broadcasts” so to speak into the main world. The actual form of IT is something that exists outside basic human understanding, something so otherworldly that we might be driven mad by its very appearance. It’s from a place, a spectral plane outside of our own known as The Macroverse, where it and a cosmic turtle named Maturin live.

Yes, that’s real. A lot of fans of the book are slightly disappointed by the lack of inclusion and the inability to capture that element on film, but it’s probably for the best in a lot of ways. Muschietti has described this sentiment himself a lot over the course of making IT, but generally…explanations are satisfying. They’re just not that scary, usually. I think that the more we know about Pennywise and IT, the less scary IT becomes; it isn’t just some evil clown that represents that time you were scarred by hitting puberty, it’s just some alien being that needs to feast on us. Takes a little of the darkness along with the mystery away, as we know slightly based on what we’re told in IT: Chapter 2.

However, there’s another angle to take this. Muschietti describes the concept of mythology; maybe he simply means how IT has built itself to this point in Derry. There’s an iconic scene from the early Dauberman script for IT: Chapter 1, one that describes a certain deal made in an old colonial settlement in what will become Derry, Maine. In it, a sort of naked and much more demonic looking Pennywise makes a deal with a horrified mother; her and her other children will be spared, so long as she allows IT to feast on her youngest born. I believe, based on what we know of previous versions of the movie as well as the rumblings regarding the possibility of a sequel, IT: Chapter 3 could be a prequel of sorts; a film based on IT’s interactions with early colonial settlers of Derry, Maine and the beginning of its terror over the town.

Grooming the citizens so that at the start of every cycle, it has a healthy handful of children to dine on before returning to its deep slumber. If that sounds just like the first one…that’s cause it kind of is, and it might lead into the problem with an IT: Chapter 3. Unless we’re wanting to dive deeper into the Macroverse and take even more away from the mystique of Pennywise, or we want to lug around the same old plot every new movie like a certain on ice franchise (maybe add a Terminator scene, just to be pessimistic) there’s not a lot that an IT: Chapter 3 can offer that we haven’t already gotten from the two films already shown.

Of course, there’s no guarantee a third film will even happen. Just like Muschietti has said, there’s been no talks, and we can possibly take that to mean that Warner Bros. is completely satisfied with how the finished novel has turned out. But, what about all of you? Would you like to see a sequel to IT: Chapter 2? What do you think could be covered? Leave your comments down below and feel free to follow me at @LukeAdaVA on Twitter!