It: Chapter 2 Director Wants To Release Extended Version

When Stephen King's classic novel It was first published in 1987, it was, at that point, one of the writer's longest books. It's not surprising the movie adaptation has been released as two separate films, with a combined running time of around five hours. Nevertheless, director Andy Muschietti has revealed that he is keen to release even longer director's cuts of both movies.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Muschietti stated that fans might be able to see what is missing from both the first 2017 movie and next month's It: Chapter 2, at some point. "It hopefully will be released as a director's cut, which is something that I'm looking forward to, including the director's cut of the first one," he said. "To this point, I'm not sure what those versions are, but I'd really, really like to make a director's cut of both movies."

These comments follow those that Muschietti made earlier this month when the running time of It: Chapter 2 was first announced. Although it still clocks in at an epic 2 hours 45 minutes, it was cut down from 4 hours. "At the beginning, when you're writing and building the beats of the story, everything that you put in there seems very essential to the story," he said. "However, when you have the movie finally edited and it's 4 hours long, you realise that some of the events and some of the beats can be easily lifted but the essence of the story remains intact."

It: Chapter 2 stars James McAvoy as Bill Denbrough, Jessica Chastain as Beverly, Bill Hader as Richie, James Ransone as Eddie, Andy Bean as Stan, and Isaiah Mustafa as Mike. Bill Skarsgård also returns as Pennywise, one of the guises of the terrifying interdimensional entity of the title. It releases on September 6. Check out the most recent trailer.

Although full reviews of the movie are yet to appear online, early twitter reports did start appearing last week. For more, read GameSpot's guide to 2019's biggest upcoming horror movies.