This year's big screen adaptation of IT will feature one major change to the Stephen King story's iconic opening prologue. This year promises to be an eventful one for Stephen King fans everywhere too, with multiple TV adaptations of the author's work in development right now, and with his beloved Dark Tower book series finally set to receive their long-awaited big screen adaptation this year. However, few of those King adaptations have quite the same level of promise and hype surrounding them that director Andrés Muschietti's upcoming take on IT has, especially following the first creepy IT trailer that was released several months ago.

While the 1990s TV mini-series adaptation of the King story has its fair share of iconic moments too - most of which are thanks to Tim Curry's classic performance as Pennywise The Clown - the film adaptation promises to be a much more full-fledged adaptation of the story. With an already confirmed R rating and the ability to go to much darker and moodier places than the TV version could, IT has the potential to not only be one of the scariest films of the year but one of the better Stephen King adaptations in recent memory.

There's perhaps, no opening of any King novel quite as iconic and terrifying as the opening of IT as well, which centers around the murder of poor young Georgie Denbrough, when his paper boat had unfortunately floated into the wrong sewer grate. However, while George's body is discovered in the original story with his arm missing, new details, images, and concept released today by EW reveal that Muschietti's version tweaks the opening slightly so that Georgie's body is never actually discovered. This then sends Bill Denbrough's (Jaeden Lieberher) not only on a mission of revenge against the shapeshifting evil known as IT, but also on a quest to find his little brother - alive or dead:

[vn_gallery name="IT Prologue/Concept Art Images" id="1014859"]

This is an interesting creative change for Muschietti and his crew to make with the story, especially since Georgie's murder is so disturbing and gut-wrenching to read precisely because of how brutal and descriptive it is. At the same time, the film's choice to keep Georgie's actual murder a mystery from his brother adds an extra layer of personal angst and intrigue to Bill's search throughout the story, which could either work well or feel like a superfluous addition to an already-emotional quest for the character.

It'll be interesting to see how Stephen King fans react to this change, especially since King's opening to IT is one of the more iconic literary moments in the author's long and storied career. Right now, IT has a lot of goodwill surrounding it from both the author himself and the King fandom as a whole, which is saying a lot considering how divisive Hollywood's attempts at bringing the author's work to life on the big screen have proven to be over the years. And this twist on George Denbrough's murder could very well be just a number of creative tweaks that ultimately decides whether or not IT sinks or swims.

NEXT: IT Trailer Breaks Online Views Record

Source: EW

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