The upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s IT just got a fresh (and frightening) new poster for San Diego Comic-Con. Directed by Andres Muschietti (Mama), the adaptation of King’s horror epic centers around the “Losers’ Club” and their decades-spanning battles with their greatest fears, a.k.a. “It”, which mostly manifests itself in the form of Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgard).

Part coming-of-age tale, part-horror survival story, Muschietti’s R-rated take on King’s novel is set to be told in two parts, with the first movie centering on the young Losers’ Club and their encounters with It during the 1980s. A new poster for the movie highlights the Losers’ Club and the haunting Pennywise, featuring one of the novel’s most memorable lines.

Warner Bros. UK revealed the foggy new IT poster on its official Twitter page on Thursday, teasing the terrifying conflict between Pennywise and the Losers’ Club. While the evil clown lurks in the shadows, there’s a fresh look at characters like Bill Denbrough (Jaeden Lieberher), Richie Tozier (Finn Wolfhard), Beverly Marsh (Sophia Lillis), Ben Hanscom (Jeremy Ray Taylor), Stan Uris (Wyatt Oleff), Mike Hanlon (Chosen Jacobs), and Eddie Kaspbrak (Jack Dylan Grazer).

Above all is the tagline, “You’ll float too,” the chilling promise that Pennywise makes to multiple characters throughout King’s novel. The new poster came out mere hours after Muschietti and King himself introduced the Comic-Con audience to an exclusive trailer and series of clips from the movie, which reportedly reveal more of both Pennywise and the Losers’ Club in action.

It’s obviously hard for a poster to convey what to expect from the tone of the new IT, but Muschietti promises that the R-rated adaptation will tackle more adult-oriented themes and ramp up the terror and violence in ways that couldn’t be explored in the 1990 TV miniseries. The scariest, most violent parts of King’s novel certainly demand an R rating to faithfully retell them, and it bodes well for the movie that Muschietti set out to do just that.

Nonetheless, a novel as sprawling and detailed as King’s IT also demands that liberties would have to be taken with a feature film adaptation. Muschietti and Warner Bros. took major risks in that regard, such as a significant change to the novel’s famously terrifying prologue. It remains to be seen whether those risks will pay off. But with the freedom of an R rating, Muschietti’s adaptation at least has a good chance to be an improvement on the IT TV miniseries.

Source: Warner Bros. Pictures

  • IT Release Date: 2017-09-08