Cary Fukunaga has left the ambitious two-film take on Stephen King’s novel It, after he fell out with New Line, according to TheWrap.
The director of the films Jane Eyre and Sin Nombre and TV’s True Detective was reportedly frustrated with budget cuts and was delivering drafts of the script that would cost more than the studio wanted to spend. Fukunaga was keen to turn It into two films, with the first focusing on the characters as children, and the second as adults.
This plan was a concern for New Line, as it meant both a higher budget (the first film was set to cost $30m; the second one more), and the difficult job of selling a film about children to an adult audience.
Production was due to start next month, and Will Poulter had been in negotiations to join the cast as Pennywise, the shape-shifting child murderer whose most memorable iteration is a clown. Fukunaga had also hoped to cast Ben Mendelsohn, but a source said that New Line refused to meet his salary demands.
Another insider claimed that the underwhelming opening for Poltergeist, which featured a clown at the centre of its marketing, caused New Line to get cold feet.
A source said that New Line will not be quickly replacing Fukunaga, and the film will now be delayed indefinitely.
Fukunaga will now focus on his forthcoming fact-based drama about a father who hiked across the US after the death of his son, who killed himself after homophobic bullying.
