The creepy Pennywise reference in Stephen King’s ‘The Dark Tower’
Since the 1970s, Hollywood has looked to Stephen King’s work as a go-to source of adaptation material. As a writer of horrors, thrillers, supernatural fiction, crime and sci-fi, King’s work has proved to be the perfect fit for the big screen, with over 50 of his stories receiving cinematic treatment. Some of the most successful adaptations of King’s work include Carrie, The Shining, The Shawshank Redemption, Stand By Me, and The Green Mile.
However, none are as beloved as the It franchise, featuring the iconic clown Pennywise. Since King’s 1986 novel introduced audiences to the terrifying character, singlehandedly scarring a whole generation of kids, the story has been adapted multiple times, beginning with a miniseries in 1990. However, the story found a new generation of fans with the release of It Chapter One in 2017, directed by Andy Muschietti.
The film grossed over $70million at the worldwide box office, becoming the third-highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time. Furthermore, the film became the most successful King adaptation, surpassing Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining. A sequel followed in 2019, It Chapter Two, which was also a box-office hit, and a prequel series, Welcome to Derry, is currently being developed at HBO Max.
Pennywise has been played by Tim Curry and Bill Skarsgård in their respective adaptations, both terrifying viewers with their unnerving performances. Unlike typical slasher villains, Pennywise, a manifestation of ‘It’, is a supernatural entity that can shapeshift and go unnoticed by adults. King revealed that he created Pennywise by asking himself what terrifies children “more than anything else in the world,” believing the answer to be clowns.
However, Pennywise doesn’t just appear in It. The author has included references to the evil clown in his other works, including Gray Matter, which was released 13 years before It. In Insomnia, set in Derry, the same as It, the book references the events of Pennywise’s first defeat. Furthermore, in The Tommyknockers, Tommy claims to have seen a “clown with shiny silver dollars for eyes,” alluding to Pennywise.
The mythology surrounding Pennywise is closely linked to King’s Dark Tower series, which expands on similar themes. In 2017, the series was adapted into a film, The Dark Tower, starring Idris Elba and Roland Deschain, and contained a little Pennywise easter egg for eagle-eyed fans.
When 11-year-old Jake enters Mid-World, he walks through an abandoned carnival. He looks up and sees a large discarded sign that reads ‘PENNYWISE’, accompanied by a decaying statue of a hand holding three balloons. This easter egg works as more than just a fan-pleasing reference – it makes sense that Pennywise could be there, as ‘It’ can hop through dimensions and take the form of whatever it pleases.
