Was the timing of It's release deliberate or coincidental?
Earlier today, I realized something startling. In the original "It" novel, It awakens roughly every 27 years to feast upon a new generation of children. The gap between the release of the It miniseries in 1990, and the film earlier this year, is exactly 27 years.
At first, I thought there was no way this was a coincidence, but apparently the movie was in development hell for several years, so it may not have been originally planned for a 2017 release date. The movie's Wikipedia article doesn't say either way, or even acknowledge the coincidence at all.
Is there any indication that the release date was planned, to resemble the 27-year cycle in the novel, or was it just fortuitous?
Best Answer
It was deliberate
The website birthmoviesdeath.com published a Stephen King Commemorative Issue which contains an interview with Andy Muschietti in which he says the following about setting the movie in 1989:
Another thing too, lest I forget: our movie takes place in the '80s. Obviously, we had to change the time periods for a bunch of different reasons. Mostly now because the '80s are to today what the '50s were to the '80s, so it just makes sense to keep the time scales to 27 years. Just move them up from 2016 back to 1989.
So I think the answer to your question is: kind of. I wouldn't say the release date was planned to match the 27 year cycle, rather the movie was set in 1989 to match the 27 year cycle with the release date.
But coincidence it was not. It was deliberately set in the 80's because of the 27 year cycle.
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