Although it’s been widely acknowledged that 2017’s IT captures the tone and spirit of King’s novel, condensing 1100 odd pages into a single cohesive two hour film is no easy feat. While the beginning and end of Andy Muschietti’s film are more or less in step with King’s opus, there have been multiple changes and sacrifices made in order to make it movie-digestible, and these might have significant ramifications in IT: Chapter Two.
Here are ten major differences between the book and the film.
Major spoilers for both IT (2017) and Stephen King’s novel IT below.
The most immediate overhaul in IT (2017) is its time period. The Losers’ Club in Stephen King’s novel first face their fears between 1957 and 1958, where they spend their time going to movie matinees and reading Lil Lulu funnybooks, or building a dam in the Barrens, or pretending to hunt a tiger in an innocent game of make-believe. IT (2017) takes place between 1988 and ‘89, where Batmania ruled Derry and Gremlins posters plaster walls, and the kids are generally just a little more world-weary and relatable - particularly Richie - to modern day audiences. This also means that the ‘adult’ part of the story that we will see in IT: Chapter 2 takes place not in the ‘80s, but in the present day.
Let’s talk about Richie, whose character overhaul in the film is one of its better decisions. The Richie in the book is still a trashmouth who can’t keep quiet, but his incessant ‘voices’ are definitely best left in the past (including a couple that are super racist), and having an entire movie worth of them would have been utterly exhausting not just for the audience but for actor Finn Wolfhard. Instead, Wolfhard’s Richie is an annoying little brother type who talks about his junk and cracks wise too much, but lets slip just enough of his heart that we like him anyway.
IT takes the form of the kids’ greatest fears, and in Stephen King’s novel these fears were firmly based in the pop culture of the ‘50s. The book’s monsters include a werewolf, the Gill-man, the mummy, and later, Frankenstein’s Monster. Stan’s painting lady and Mike’s burned parents are inventions for the film, while Pennywise the Dancing Clown himself makes up much of the bulk of the scares. Eddie’s leper appears in both (though he's somehow less...vulgar), as does Bev’s blood-spurting sink.
Mike has had the most dramatic character shift of all the Losers’ Club in his journey from book to film. In the book Mike’s parents are very much alive, and he spends his time helping his father with chores and listening to stories of the history of Derry. He brings this knowledge to the Losers’ Club to help them piece together ITs timeline, while his keen nose for history stays with him as an adult, where he becomes Derry’s librarian. In the film version, Mike’s parents were both burned to death in a fire and he now works for his grandfather, reluctantly killing sheep with a bolt-gun. Ben has been given Mike’s role of Derry detective, and Mike’s major contribution to ‘killing’ Pennywise is the aforementioned bolt-gun he brings into the sewers.
The Beverly in the book was always friendly with the very first members of the Losers’ Club - Bill, Eddie, Richie and Stan - and therefore the boys don’t all go gaga over the presence of ‘a girl’ as they do in the film (bar Ben, who is as adorably in love with Bev across both). The book also builds her up as a crack shot, hinted at in the movie but never properly cemented, and she is the one who is tasked with going into the house on Neibolt Street and delivering a silver slug into ITs brain with a slingshot. Still, the essence of her character remains intact in Muschietti’s film; tough, wiley, and funny.
Silver, Bill’s hulk of a bike, is a symbol of both persistence and escape in King’s book. The bike is much bigger than Bill and takes a lot to get going, but once it does it’s fast enough to “beat the devil.” Bill uses it as an escape from his miserable home life after Georgie’s death, but it also plays a vital part in saving the lives of his friends and family, both as a child and as an adult. In the movie, there’s a nod to the bike - the camera zooms into the word 'Silver' on its body - but not as much onus put on it; perhaps we’ll see more of Silver in the next chapter.
Patrick is killed fairly early on in the 2017 movie, a tall skinny kid who gets eaten in the sewers and becomes just another missing poster in Derry. In the book Patrick is much more prolific. A quiet kid with what King describes as “livery lips”, Patrick is Derry’s solipsistic serial-killer-in-training. At school he wordlessly shows girls the dead fly collection he kept in his pencil box, out of school he murders cats and dogs by stuffing them in a rusting Amana refrigerator he found at the dump. Patrick’s death, which swiftly comes to him from his refrigerator one day, is one of the most memorable in King’s book.
Although the Losers’ Club in the book perform the same ‘blood circle’ as they do in the film once IT has been defeated (for 27 years, anyway), bridging the gap between childhood and adulthood, King also wrote another scene that essentially served the same purpose. Beverly’s decision to be the “first love” of all the boys in The Losers’ Club down in the sewers is an immediate talking point for anybody who has read the book, and it’s material that is simply too controversial for any director to touch.
Canonically, Henry and the remains of his gang, Victor and Belch, chase the Losers into the sewers in the book, where Vic and Belch are killed and Henry is left to go insane, surviving but eventually blamed for the spate of child murders that had plagued Derry. In IT (2017) Henry appears to die after struggling with Mike, who pushed him down a well. Henry plays a part in the book as an adult; we’ll see if he survived the fall to make an appearance in IT: Chapter Two.
Though IT must always be ultimately defeated by fearlessness and belief in one's own strength, the means in which the kids attack and finally ‘kill’ IT is different in the film. In the book the kids decide to make silver slugs - it is their belief that silver kills monsters that give the slugs their power - and Beverly attacks IT with a slingshot in the house on Neibolt St, forcing it to retreat into the sewers. In their final confrontation with IT as children they perform the Ritual of Chud, a psychic duel of wits, which simply would not have translated into film. In the film Mike’s bolt gun replaces Bev's slingshot. and they eventually force IT into retreat by attacking IT en masse and telling IT they are no longer afraid. Same result, but very different means.
Lucy O'Brien is Games & Entertainment Editor at IGN’s Sydney office. Follow her on Twitter.
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