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Here’s photographic evidence that Stephen King’s ‘It’ has begun filming

By Rick Marshall Published June 30, 2016

For quite a while, it seemed like the big-screen version of Stephen King’s It was destined for development limbo, but production is now officially underway on the two-part feature from Mama director Andy Muschietti — a fact that the filmmaker confirmed with a photo from the set on the first day of filming.

Simply captioned “Day one,” Muschietti’s photo shows the back of the director’s chair with the logo for the film: creepy red letters spelling the film’s title, It.

The photo was posted on Instagram:

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Day one

A photo posted by Andy Muschietti (@andy_muschietti) on Jun 27, 2016 at 12:04pm PDT

Set to star Swedish actor Bill Skarsgard of Hemlock Grove and The Divergent Series: Allegiant as the nightmare-inducing villain Pennywise the clown, the film’s core cast also includes younger and older versions of the same group of seven characters. The first film follows a group of childhood friends who must overcome their fear to battle an evil, supernatural entity responsible for the deaths of children in their Maine hometown. The second film brings the friends back as adults as they face the possibility that they must risk their lives and return home once again to fight the creature they defeated decades ago.

Along with Skarsgard as Pennywise, the film’s cast includes Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), Sophia Lillis, Jack Dylan Grazer (Tales of Halloween), Wyatt Oleff (Guardians of the Galaxy), Chosen Jacobs (Hawaii Five-0), and Jeremy Ray Taylor (42) as the younger versions of the friends.

The first film in the two-part saga will arrive in theaters September 8, 2017.

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The Monkey teaser: Longlegs director takes on Stephen King

A bloody Theo James takes off his glasses.

Osgood Perkins is staying in horror for his next film. The Longlegs director is moving on from serial killers to tackle an evil toy in The Monkey, a supernatural horror based on a Stephen King short story.

In The Monkey teaser, Theo James stars as Hal and Bill, twin brothers who witness a series of horrific deaths after discovering their father's old toy monkey in the attic. The brothers separate after discarding the monkey in an attempt to move on with their lives. When the gruesome deaths suddenly restart again, the brotherly duo reunite and set out to eradicate the monkey once and for all.

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Stephen King’s most underrated movie deserves your attention this Halloween

A wounded man sits down in The Dark Half.

Author Stephen King has had his writing adapted for film and television several times in the past 50 years. Since so many interpretations of his work have been made, some films and TV shows were bound to have fallen under the radar. One King adaptation that audiences have sorely overlooked is 1993's The Dark Half.
Based on King's 1989 novel of the same name, this horror film follows bestselling novelist Thad Beaumont as he decides to retire his pen name, "George Stark," and holds a mock burial for him, only for Stark to become an actual person hellbent on terrorizing Beaumont and everyone close to him as revenge for his "death" years before.
THE DARK HALF (1991) | Official Trailer | MGM

The Dark Half failed to recoup its $15 million budget, making around $10.6 million at the box office. Like the most recent version of Salem's Lot, this movie was lucky to have been released at all, as it had finished filming for two years by the time Orion Pictures decided to distribute it. The Dark Half may be a bit too dramatic for modern tastes, but the film has earned considerable praise and deserves greater recognition from audiences. Now that Halloween is almost here, it's time to dig deep into the annals of spooky cinema and explore why The Dark Half is such an underrated film.
The Dark Half has a clever story

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30 years ago, a beloved Stephen King adaptation flopped at the box office

Prisoners stand in a prison yard in The Shawshank Redemption.

Stephen King has inspired more Hollywood adaptations of his work than almost any other writer. His novels and short stories served as the source material for some of the most acclaimed and iconic horror movies of the 1970s, '80s, and '90s, including Brian De Palma's Carrie, Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, and Rob Reiner's Misery. Even now, 50 years after the release of his debut novel, King's work continues to inspire new, high-profile adaptations (see: Mike Flanagan's Doctor Sleep and Andy Muschietti's It).

King is inarguably best known as a horror writer. However, one of the most beloved adaptations of his work also happens to be based on one of his more noteworthy non-horror stories. The film in question, The Shawshank Redemption, has found its place among the most popular and well-known movies in Hollywood history. Despite that, it was an infamous box office bomb when it was released in 1994 — grossing only $16 million in its initial theatrical run. More popular releases, like Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, initially overshadowed it that year. Since then, however, The Shawshank Redemption's reputation has improved and grown.