“Too scary, even for me”: the iconic character Stephen King wants nothing to do with
Having been responsible for causing his fair share of nightmares, whether that’s through his literary works or their live-action adaptation, you’d imagine that there isn’t much capable of scaring Stephen King.
After all, he’s called horror his home for the entirety of his professional life, and few figures in modern culture have contributed more to the genre than him. Whether it’s his stories, his characters, or their contrivances, they don’t call him the ‘Master of Horror’ for nothing.
While many of his books have been butchered beyond recognition by Hollywood, which is part and parcel of his bibliography being constantly cannibalised for 50 years, when a King creation hits big, it really hits big. Take The Shawshank Redemption, for example, which endures as one of the most beloved movies ever made.
He may have loathed Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with every fibre of its being, but it can’t be denied that the legendary auteur crafted one of cinema’s most iconic horror flicks, regardless of how much King abhorred what the meticulous maestro did to his source material, or how woefully miscast he believed Jack Nicholson and Shelley Duvall to be.
If an author falls in love with a character they’ve created, then it stands to reason they’ll dust them off and use them again should the opportunity present itself, especially an author like King, who has many novels, novellas, and short stories that exist in a loosely connected universe where cross-pollination isn’t off the table.
Dick Hallorann, Richie Crozier, Randall Flagg, Danny Torrance, Father Callahan, and Ralph Roberts are just a few of the folks who’ve appeared in at least two different stories, but despite being referenced directly in The Tommyknockers and Dreamcatcher, King remains adamant that Pennywise is one-and-done as a presence in one of his self-penned books.
When asked in a Reddit AMA if there was any chance the inter-dimensional entity would ever be seen again as the antagonist of a new adventure, he shut it down immediately. “I don’t think I could bear to deal with Pennywise again,” he confirmed. “Too scary, even for me.” As you may have noticed, though, Hollywood doesn’t feel the same way.
After Tim Curry scarred an entire generation in the original miniseries, Bill Skarsgård did much the same in Andy Muschietti’s pair of feature-length adaptations, before reprising the role in Welcome to Derry. With the series becoming one of HBO’s most-watched originals in recent years, and Muschietti angling for at least a second season, the chances are high that the child-devouring clown will return once again.
He’ll happily pick up the residuals that come with his ceremonial executive producing credit, but as an author, King is too terrified of Pennywise to even contemplate another book where the creature appears.
