Stephen King is one of the most iconic authors of all time. His books are not only well-known, but so are their adaptations, with numerous film and television projects having been based on his works. Now the most successful Stephen King adaptation of all has become the number one horror movie on Max.
As of this writing, FlixPatrol has revealed that Andy Muschietti’s 2017 adaptation of Stephen King’s IT has become Max’s biggest horror movie. Now that’s quite a feat considering how vast and varied Max’s horror selection can be. And especially when you consider that IT was released six years ago.
Stephen King’s 1986 novel of the same name was always successful. It sparked a 1990 miniseries which famously starred Tim Curry as the project’s antagonist. It was Bill Skarsgård‘s performance, however, that reinvented Pennywise the Clown for a new generation. A reinvention that paid off after the film made over $700 million at the box office.
It was followed by a sequel, IT: Chapter Two, in 2019. The film adapted portions of King’s story that were left out of the first adaptation. Though it wasn’t as well-received as its predecessor, it still managed to earn another $473 million at the box office.
As mentioned, King’s novels have always sparked popular adaptations. There have been films like Carrie, The Shining, Christine, and Pet Sematary. And while they’ve all become iconic in their own right, much like King’s original stories, they never turned a box office profit much like IT has. Now that the film is still doing numbers on Max so many years after its release, it’s clear that Warner Bros had something special on their hands.
Fortunately, it doesn’t seem like the end of Pennywise the Clown. There’s currently an IT prequel series, inspired by the Stephen King novel and the previous adaptations, in development for Max. The series, titled Welcome to Derry, is set to explore the origins of the supernatural character and how it first began its reign of terror in Derry, Maine so many years before the films take place.
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