For It: Chapter Two, see here.
- Approval of God:
- Stephen King himself was very happy with the movie after seeing it early.
- Tim Curry said that Bill Skarsgård was a great choice to play Pennywise.
- Anthrax voiced their approval
for the Shout-Out to them.
- California Doubling: The Maine-set movie was shot in Toronto, while most of the exterior scenes in Derry were shot in the nearby town of Port Hope.
- The Cast Showoff: That really is Bill Skarsgård pointing his eyes in two different directions to achieve the effect of Pennywise constantly keeping one eye straight at the camera. It was intended to be done with CGI until he showed the crew that he could actually do it. He also worked with contortionists for the scene where his 6'4" frame is crammed into a tiny fridge.
- Dawson Casting: Mostly averted. All the Losers were between the ages of 12-15 during filming, with the two oldest being Chosen Jacobs, who was 15, and Sophia Lillis who was 14.
- Deleted Scene: There was originally a "really disturbing" scene that took place 18th-century Old Derry — presumably the massacre of the fur traders or the early European settlers — before It took the form of Pennywise, with Skarsgård saying he looked "more" like himself in the scene. The scene was fully shot but didn't make it into the final cut. It's possible the scene will be Refitted for Sequel along with the Black Spot scene.
- An episode of the podcast Throwing Shade had host Bryan Safi and guest Timothy Simons — who had both auditioned for the role — reading their sides for the scene, where It - who is described as a writhing white worm-like devil lurking by a well — demands that a young settler woman hand over her baby, or he will systematically destroy her life before allowing her to die. Even when it's being read with humor, it sounds like it would have been terrifying.
- Dueling Works: It was released around the same time as fellow horror film mother! (2017), but completely trounced it in both reviews and box office gross.
- Enforced Method Acting: All of the child actors went along with the decision to totally avoid seeing Bill Skarsgård in costume as Pennywise until they absolutely had to, so their shock on film would seem as genuine as possible. All seven actors, as a group, first saw him in the slide projector scene (one or two like Bill saw him individually before that). They filmed other scenes first out of order, or other scenes in which It appears to them as something other than Pennywise (i.e. Beverly's blood sink scene doesn't reveal "Pennywise the Clown" as such). They also made it a point to totally avoid Skarsgård off-set while he was still in full costume and prosthetics, to try to avoid getting used to his appearance.
- Executive Meddling: Former writer/director Cary Fukunaga claimed this as the reason for leaving the project in 2015. The directing job passed on to Andrés Muschietti, who was enthusiastic about the film and based the movie on a revised version of Fukunaga's screenplay.
- Fake American: Of the Losers Club, Canadian Finn Wolfhard plays American Richie Tozier. Most of the secondary characters and extras are also played by Canadians, while Australian Nicholas Hamilton plays Henry Bowers.
- Friendship on the Set: The cast very quickly became a close knit group of friends, especially the actors who played the Losers. There is plenty of behind-the-scenes video that show them hanging out together and having fun. There have also been many instances where the cast have posted their support for each other's projects outside of the film series. They write that they are "best friends", and encourage their followers to watch/support their work. Even now about five years after filming they still seem close, as they consistently stay connected through social media.
- Irony As He Is Cast: Henry Bowers, who, among other nasty things, spews homophobic slurs, is played by openly gay actor Nicholas Hamilton.
- Meaningful Release Date: The film wound up being released in 2017, 27 years after the 1990 TV movie. In the novel, IT comes out to feast upon the town every 27 years. Even better, the miniseries was released the year Bill Skarsgård was born.
- Chapter Two was released almost exactly two years after Chapter One.
- Chapter One was re-released into theaters for two dates on August 3rd and 6th of 2019. This was exactly one month before Chapter Two was to open in theaters, and almost exactly two years since it's original release.
- Orphaned Reference: Pennywise saying "Beep, Beep Richie!" In the book, the kids say this when they want Richie to shut up. In the movie, they simply say "Shut up, Richie", making the line lose some of its impact.
- Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: Sophia Lillis prefers to wear her hair short, so they had her wear extensions for the first part and then give herself an Important Haircut as a way of rebelling against her father's incestuous attraction to her. Notably in the book, one of Beverly's defining characteristics is her long hair.
- Saved from Development Hell: It had been in production since 2009, ultimately passing rather messily from Cary Fukunaga to Andrés Muschietti.
- Scully Box: Sophia Lillis admitted she had to stand on an apple box in some scenes, because she was too short.
- Spared by the Cut: Vic and Belch were supposed to be killed by Henry, as a deleted scene shows Henry arriving at the Well House in Belch's car with Vic and Belch's bodies in the passenger seats. However, this was cut for unspecified reasons and the only implication of their deaths is the amount of blood on Henry's face and the fact that he's driving Belch's car. Their deaths aren't mentioned in the sequel either and IT-Patrick is the one who gets Henry out of the psychiatric hospital (rather than the possessed corpses of Vic and Belch in the book), meaning there's a possibility that one or both of them were able to escape from Henry and were just not heard from again.
- Star-Making Role:
- Pennywise, for Bill Skarsgård. This was the first time he got major attention for his performance itself rather than just being part of the Skarsgard acting family.
- For the young actors who played the Losers, particularly Sophia Lillis (Beverly) and Jack Dylan Grazer (Eddie).
- Throw It In!:
- In some scenes, Pennywise is seen to be drooling while talking to children. The buckteeth/fangs Bill Skarsgård was made to wear actually made him slobber, so the film makers went ahead and added more fake slobber into his mouth.
- Director Andrés Muschietti was originally going to make Pennywise's eyes look in separate directions by means of using visual effects in post-production, but Skarsgård, in an odd case of an Actor-Inspired Element, showed that he could actually physically make his eyes look in two different directions at the same time as soon as he was made aware of this. Muschietti was impressed with his ability to pull this off and joked that Skarsgård saved him a lot of money in post-production.
- Troubled Production: Pre-production in this case. Production on the film itself apparently had no real issues, but the movie languished in Development Hell for several years before losing its director and key writer over Creative Differences, with Cary Fukunaga stating that he was worried that the studio wanted to make a conventional horror movie out of an unconventional horror story. Fukunaga made a number of changes such as renaming the characters, along with more controversial changes such as scenes where Bowers ejaculated into a cake and had sex with a sheep. Beverly's father also explicitly tried to rape her in this version. It would have earned an NC-17 rating. Muschietti's movie is a more faithful adaptation of the novel.
- What Could Have Been:
- Will Poulter was originally cast to portray Pennywise before the casting of Bill Skarsgård. However, Poulter dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts and the departure of Cary Fukunaga.
- Ben Mendelsohn and Hugo Weaving were also approached for the role of Pennywise. Mendelsohn turned down the offer due to the studio wanting him to take a sizable pay cut, while Weaving declined due to Creative Differences over the portrayal of the character.
- Jim Carrey, Kirk Acevedo, Richard Armitage, Tom Hiddleston, Jackie Earle Haley, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Paul Giamatti, Doug Jones, Channing Tatum and Tilda Swinton were considered for the part of Pennywise as well before the casting of Skarsgård.
- Ty Simpkins was considered for the role of Bill Denbrough before Jaeden Martell was cast.
- The "Summers of It" documentaries from the Chapter Two special features mentioned that a few of the child actors auditioned for different roles. Jaeden Martell mentioned that he auditioned for the role of Eddie before getting cast as Bill.
- Chloë Grace Moretz was considered for the part of Beverly Marsh before the casting of Sophia Lillis. However, the film spent so long in Development Hell that Moretz had aged out of the role.
- Noah Schnapp was approached for Richie Tozier before the casting of Finn Wolfhard, but turned it down due to scheduling commitments. Schnapp and Wolfhard would later co-star together on Stranger Things as Will Byers and Mike Wheeler respectively.
- Cary Fukunaga was initially hired to write and direct the movie before Andrés Muschietti was hired. After several years of working on the project, Fukunaga departed the project, citing Executive Meddling that clashed with his artistic vision.
- David Kajganich was hired to write a script for the film that attempted to cram the entire book into a single script. At one point, Kajganich's script had the Losers Club meeting their older selves to team up and defeat Pennywise at the ending.
- Guillermo del Toro and The Duffer Brothers also expressed interest in directing the movie before Muschietti was hired. The Duffer Brothers would eventually go on to create Stranger Things which co-stars Finn Wolfhard and takes heavy inspiration from the works of Stephen King.
- This article mentions that at one point the filmmakers thought to add a scene where It takes the appearance of Freddy Krueger, since this iteration of the story is set in the '80s. However, the director decided against it, saying that it felt almost like an in-joke (both this film and the ANOES franchise are owned by New Line Cinema), and that he wanted to feature fears more in line with childhood traumas and the like. The article's author argues that perhaps he was afraid that an iconic character like Freddy could have overshadowed Pennywise. Ironically, It ended up as something of a spiritual successor to A Nightmare On Elm Street with that franchise's future uncertain at the time. (Elm Street did get a Shout-Out in the movie, as A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child is shown to be playing at the local movie theater.)
- A Redditor found a part of the script and there's a supposed screenshot of a never filmed scene where Pennywise eats a baby bearing a Big Red Devil look.
- A Redditor found a part of the script
- Will Poulter was originally cast to portray Pennywise before the casting of Bill Skarsgård. However, Poulter dropped out of the project due to scheduling conflicts and the departure of Cary Fukunaga.
