'True Detective' Director to Turn Stephen King's 'It' Into a Big-Screen Scare-fest

Prepare to be reminded why you’re so afraid of clowns. True Detective director Cary Fukunaga will be bringing Stephen King’s It to the big screen next summer, and has apparently been working on it for quite some time. “Cary likes to develop things for a while, and we’ve been with this for about three or four years, so we’re super excited that he stayed with it,” producer Dan Lin told Vulture.

King’s 1986 horror novel, about a group of childhood friends terrorized by an evil supernatural being, has never been adapted as a feature film, though a beloved three-hour miniseries (featuring Tim Curry as the villain’s preferred incarnation, Pennywise the Clown) aired on ABC in 1990. Because the events of It take place over thirty years, condensing it into a two-hour feature film poses a challenge. That’s why Lin is actually producing two It movies, the first one taking place when the characters are children, and the second one when they’re adults.

Fukunaga has only signed on for the first, but is in negotiations to direct both. More to the point, King himself has given the new It his blessing. “When we sent him the script, the response that Cary got back was, ‘Go with God, please! This is the version the studio should make,’” said Lin. If that isn’t enough to get Stephen King fans revved up, here are three more works by the horror master that are headed to theaters near you.

The Stand – Another multi-part King adaptation, The Stand is being adapted into four films by Warner Bros., with The Fault in Our Stars director Josh Boone at the helm. Often considered the best of King’s novels, the post-apocalyptic epic (which clocks in at over 1200 pages) was made into an eight-hour TV miniseries in 1994. Boone plans to go into production this spring with a (not yet announced) cast that he claims will “blow people’s minds.”

Gerald’s Game -  Mike Flanagan (Oculus) is directing a film based on King’s 1992 suspense novel, about a married couple whose romantic getaway becomes a deadly game. “We’re casting that right now and hopefully we’ll be going into production on that in late winter or early spring of next year,” he told Fangoria in August. 

Cell – Not to be confused with the 2000 Jennifer Lopez film The Cell or the 2004 Jason Statham film Cellular, this is an adaptation of King’s 2006 novel about a strange cell phone signal that turns all of humanity into zombies. Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack star as two of the few survivors untouched by the epidemic. The Tod Williams-directed movie has wrapped production and is set for a 2015 release. “The movie is not totally close to the original screenplay that I wrote,” King told Buzzfeed in June. “But I’ll tell you what, the end of it is so goddamn dark and scary. It’s really kind of a benchmark there.”