How The IT Director Feels About His Movie Pissing Off Real Clowns

pennywise with georgie's boat

A lot of the reactions to IT have been pretty positive, but there's one faction that has certainly not been happy about Pennywise the clown's big screen comeback. That niche group is none other than professional clowns, who have argued that projects like IT affect their livelihood in the weeks leading up to the release of the horror movie. Now, IT director Andres Muschietti has responded to the controversy, explaining how he feels about the movie pissing off clowns.

Tell me about it. Yeah, I have a clown that is harassing me--eh, not harassing me. Look, to be fair, he's a good guy, but he's been asking me, 'Why would I do this?' I was very polite and said like, 'Well, kids are scared of clowns.' I think if anything, clowns are benefiting from the publicity. Clown fear is coming back, but you know there's scary clowns and there's nice clowns. So they should think about what kind of clown they should be, right? I mean, if they scare kids they scare kids because they are scary.

Andy Muschietti's comments echo something that Stephen King said recently when he noted that while he supports clowns, clowns have to know that they can be scary, especially for some kids. The director took it a step further in his comments to TMZ, noting that he feels there has been a benefit for clowns thanks to publicity related to IT. It sort of goes along with the idea that all publicity is good publicity, but there are definitely some clowns who don't believe that's true.

Prior to the release of IT, several clowns spoke out about how being a clown is a dying profession, and that horror related clown projects definitely do not help. One clown, Gilly Adams, even noted at the time:

The ultimate prick in this [IT movie] is that it's going to turn young consumers away from an art form that's sweet and nice and not about the Kardashians and Minecraft.

IT hasn't been the first time in recent memory that clowns were used to inspire fear. American Horror Story: Freak Show used a similar tactic when it introduced its clown, also incurring the wrath of professional clowns, who came out at the time and also said similar things about not enjoying how pop culture clowns affect the sentiments people have toward real-life clowns. All in all, no one seems to be clowning around about the issue, but people do seem to have varying opinions on the clown issue and how pop culture clowns affect the average consumer. Andres Muschietti also mentioned that clowns can vary and that it all has to do with "makeup," "performance" and "attitude," which is a bit of an additional take.

If clowns don't make you nervous--or even if they do--you can catch IT in theaters right now, or take a look at what we know about the sequel. In addition, here's what all is hitting theaters in the near future.

Jessica Rawden
Managing Editor

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.