Isn’t it rich? / Aren’t (these two movies going to be) a pair? Photo: ERIC FEFERBERG/2013 AFP

Send in the clown: In an interview with Collider yesterday, Stephen King said that the film adaptation of It, his seminal horror novel that was previously adapted into a TV miniseries, may be happening after all. King told Vulture that Cary Fukunaga was set to direct a two-film version of the novel back in 2014, but that project stalled out. About a year ago, Mama’s Andy Muschietti came aboard, but with not much other noise, it seems that It had gone dormant. It hasn’t. “It will hopefully be shooting later this year,” King told Collider. “We just got the California tax credit … Gary Doberman wrote the most recent draft working with Andy Muschetti, so it’s being envisioned as two movies.” King confirmed that It is sticking with the two-film model as well, shooting one from the perspective of the children in the story and one from the perspective of the adults. King also said It will be R-rated, as any film with clowns should be.

This either marks the beginning of a big few years for King, whose Dark Tower novels are also slowly making their way to the screen, or the beginning of another flurry of delays and postponements, as so often happens to projects stuck in development hell. Let’s hope It escapes that hell, just this one time.