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Stephen King's It remake put on indefinite hold as director Cary Fukunaga walks out

The film studio and director clashed over artistic vision and budget cuts

Jack Shepherd
Tuesday 26 May 2015 05:22 EDT
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Pennywise the clown in the ABC "It" TV series
Pennywise the clown in the ABC "It" TV series

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After months of preparation, planning and rumours, the cinematic remake of Stephen King’s It has been pushed back indefinitely as True Detective director Cary Fukunaga has left the project.

According to The Wrap, the film’s studio, New Line, and Fukunaga had repeatedly clashed on numerous occasions over artistic vision and a demanding budgets, leading to the director walking out just weeks before production was set to begin in June.

The ambitious project, originally set up by Warner Bros, changed studio's in 2014. Insiders confirmed that as Fukunaga had released new drafts of the script conflicts began to erupt as they went well over the $30 million budget.

It was also reported that New Line had gotten 'cold feet' over the project as this year's Poltergeist, a horror movie which used a clown heavily in marketing, was a relative box office flop.

Author Stephen King Tweeted about the situation, writing: “The remake of IT may be dead—or undead—but we’ll always have Tim Curry. He’s still floating down in the sewers Derry.”

The novel was previously adapted into a TV miniseries starring Tim Curry as evil clown Pennywise, and was scheduled to be released as a two part movie treatment.

Producer Dan Lin said in December: "The idea is to start official prep in March for a summer shoot. 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. You guys are gonna be really excited."

Unfortunately, it looks like fans are going to have to wait a lot longer to see their favourite clown at the cinema one more time

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