The upcoming IT film that hits theaters this fall has officially been rated R. As iconic as Tim Curry's portrayal of Pennywise the Clown in the 1990 miniseries adaptation of Stephen King's IT has become, it's hard to deny that the overall product doesn't have some problems. While the cast is quite talented and the score suitably creepy, two huge obstacles stood in the way of IT (1990) ever truly being a faithful adaptation of King's massive novel.
The first of those obstacles was trying to tell such a sprawling story under the constraints of a small TV budget. While director Tommy Lee Wallace did his best, lack of money contributed to things like the horrific - in a bad way - stop motion spider puppet that served as IT's final form. Secondly - and perhaps most notably - was the effect of network TV content restrictions. King's book is very much not suitable for children, full of bad language, blood, gore, and sexual content. As one might imagine nearly all of that was removed before hitting the small screen.
While the budget of director Andy Muschetti's upcoming theatrical adaptation of IT has yet to be reported, one presumes it was much, much more than what the TV miniseries had to work with nearly 30 years ago. That solves the first of the above problems. Now, Bloody Disgusting reports what should solve the second one: IT (2017) has officially been rated R by the MPAA.
Of course, IT obtaining an R rating is not exactly a shock, as Muschetti and producers have mentioned several times in the past that they were shooting for an R. Still, the fact that it's now official will likely only increase the already high levels of anticipation for IT among both horror fans and King diehards. The trailers and clips released so far have already hinted at a much meaner and darker take on IT than fans got in 1990, so one wonders just how harsh things get in the actual film.
Even with the R rating though, there are certain scenes from King's book that almost definitely won't make it into this new movie version. Outside of the infamous scene where the Losers have sex in the sewers of Derry - a sequence that has always been controversial - the book also contained a lot of cosmic horror material, that would still probably be too difficult or expensive to try and realize on film. Still, one can bet that Muschetti's effort will likely get to go to realms of terror that Curry and company could only dream of back in 1990.
MORE: The It Set Was Nightmare Fuel
Source: Bloody Disgusting
