Trivia / It (1990)

• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Harry Anderson suggested that Richie be the only one not to hug Bill when he returns, as he now was the skeptic of the group after Stan's death.
  • A lot of Eddie's medicines actually belonged to Dennis Christopher. In fact, Tommy Lee Wallace allowed the cast to bring things from their normal lives on-set.
• Approval of God: Stephen King commented on the miniseries in a 2015 interview, saying: "You have to remember, my expectations were in the basement. Here was a book that sprawled over 1,000 pages, and they were going to cram it into four hours, with commercials. But the series really surprised me by how good it was. It's a really ambitious adaptation of a really long book."
• California Doubling: Most of the Maine-set film was shot in British Columbia. The 2017 adaptation was shot in Ontario.
• Creator Backlash:
  • Although Tommy Lee Wallace enjoyed working on the miniseries, he felt they fell short in comparison to the original novel. He also felt that Part 2 wasn't as good as Part 1, because the adults weren't as magnetic to watch, especially when it came time to battle Pennywise.
  • Olivia Hussey didn't enjoy her time on the miniseries because the production put her up in a tiny hotel on the other side of town - separate from the rest of the cast, leading to her feeling very lonely the whole time she was there. She has however referred to Tim Curry as "a doll" and the rest of the cast as "lovely".
• Dawson Casting:
  • In a curious inversion, most of the adult actors were the same age as their book counterparts. But the film ages the characters up by about five years, meaning only John Ritter, Richard Masur and Tim Reid were in their forties. Michael Cole, who played Henry as an adult, was fifty - but this is justified since Henry has aged badly due to the traumas in his youth.
  • A couple of the kids were this too. In the book, they're all eleven or twelve. Jonathan Brandis was fifteen and Seth Green was sixteen.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Brandon Crane, who played the young Ben, said he had some massive '80s Hair that had to be all chopped off for the role.
• Executive Meddling: According to Lawrence D. Cohen, ABC mandated the two-part/four-hour format, which required losing a lot of material from the novel.
• Fake American:
  • British Tim Curry uses an American accent to play Pennywise, even if he's an Eldritch Abomination from another realm.
  • Played with when it comes to Olivia Hussey. Audra in the book is American but has lost her accent from years of living in the UK, and it comes back when she returns to America. Hussey keeps her own accent throughout the film, and there's no mention of her being an American.
  • Much of the supporting cast (notably Garry Chalk as Eddie's gym coach, Venus Terzo as Ben's date in the beginning, and the late Gabe Khouth as Victor) are played by actors from the local Vancouver acting pool, resulting in a bunch of Canadians trying their hardest to sound American to varying degrees of success.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Tim Curry suffered a debilitating case of coulrophobia (a fear of clowns) most of his life. His contract explicitly stated that while on set, there were to be no reflective surfaces within sight of him while he was in makeup, and a makeup tech was very nearly fired for having a makeup mirror in his hand while Curry was having his makeup applied.
• I Want You to Meet an Old Friend of Mine:
  • Adult Henry is played by Michael Cole, best known for playing Pete Cochran on The Mod Squad, which Annette Otoole (adult Beverly) once guest starred on.
• Mean Character, Nice Actor: Jared Blancard (young Henry) hated having to call Marlon Taylor (young Mike) the N-word and was extremely apologetic to him over it between scenes.
  • Frank C. Turner was almost considered too kind in Real Life to play Al Marsh, and would remind Emily Perkins offscreen that his abusive behavior towards her in the film didn't reflect his real feelings and personality.
• Playing Against Type: Many of the cast members were primarily known for comedic roles (Tim Reid for WKRP in Cincinnati, John Ritter for Three's Company, Richard Masur for One Day at a Time, and so on) and guest appearances on television series. Few were known for horror films. Harry Anderson (best known as the zany judge in Night Court), also applies, but at least his character is mostly the comic relief.
• Promoted Fanboy: John Ritter was a huge fan of Stephen King and the book. The studio thought he was crazy when he asked if the Turtle would feature in the climax of the miniseries.
• Throw It In!:
  • It was actually raining the day of filming the children going down into the sewer, saving the production the trouble of having to fake it.
  • Harry Anderson improvised most of adult!Richie's lines.
• Troubled Production: While it was nothing too major, the It documentary on the making of this movie revealed that most of the kid cast were very misbehaving and causing issues such as throwing water balloons on cars. It got to the point where the police were called on them and one of the producers afterwards had to give the child cast a very firm/angry lecture about how they can not act wild like that on the set. He also reminded the child cast that their bad behavior could affect them getting work in the future with other productions.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Malcolm McDowell, Roddy McDowall, and Alice Cooper were considered for the part of Pennywise before the casting of Tim Curry.
  • David Alan Grier was considered for Alan.
  • Jim Carrey was considered for Eddie Kaspbrak.
  • It was originally planned as a six-hour miniseries to be directed by George A. Romero. He worked extensively on the script and in pre-production, only to bow out due to scheduling conflicts with Night of the Living Dead (1990).
  • Early in development, the project was considered as a four-night mini-series, with eight-to-ten hours total.
  • Pennywise was originally going to look much older◊. His make-up was going to be different◊ too.
  • It was originally proposed that Curry play all the forms It shape shifts into except the giant spider, but they decided it'd be quicker to have different actors playing those forms than to wait for Curry to have the make-up applied on him.

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