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Pennywise Cast in New Version of Stephen King's It

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Will Poulter at this year’s Sundance Film Festival (Photo: Getty Images)

Will Poulter, the actor who broke through with his comedic turn a virginal doofus in We’re the Millers, is making a dramatic turn for the evil and in negotiations to play the villain in New Line’s adaptation of Stephen King’s It.

Cary Fukunaga is directing the two-movie adaptation which is due to go into production June. Dan Lin and Roy Lee are producing as are Seth Grahame-Smith and David Katzenberg.

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The story follows a group of teens called the Losers Club who defeat a creature called It. Years later, the creature returns, and the club, now adults, have to band together again even though they have no memory of the first battle.

The plan is for the first movie to tell the kids’ story and the second movie to focus on the adults.

With the first movie, the teens band together when one of the protagonists’ brothers disappears in the town’s local storm drains, and they begin a seach, not knowing that It is counting on exactly that.

It is a being that commonly takes the form a clown who, when he smiles, is all killer teeth.

The studio and producers were initially looking to cast someone older (Tim Curry played the killer clown in the 1990 TV mini-series) but then did an about-face when scheduling kept choices such as Mark Rylance out of the picture.

Poulter has also done an about-face since his comedic turn in Millers. He appeared in YA thriller The Maze Runner but it was his work in Revenant, the forthcoming revenge drama from Alejandro Gonzalez Inaritu that stars Leonardo DiCaprio, is said to be what grabbed the attention of producers. Poulter is one of the men who leaves DiCaprio’s character for dead in Revenant, which opens January 8, 2016

He is repped by WME.