Stephen King’s It headed to the big screen

Warner Bros. has tapped Dave Kajganich – wrote penned The Invasion and Joel Schumacher’s upcoming horror Creek – to adapt Stephen King’s horror novel It, with Dan Lin, Roy Lee and Doug Davison producing, according to Variety.

The original story follows the lives of seven children in a small Maine town who confront a demonic creature named Pennywise, that is the source of a series of murders in 1958 and then again in 1985, when the cycle begins again. I know I never looked at clowns the same way again, after watching the 1990 ABC miniseries based on the book. The original miniseries was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch) and starred Harry Anderson, Dennis Christopher, Richard Masur, Annette O’Toole, Tim Reid, John Ritter, Richard Thomas, Seth Green, Emily Perkins, Olivia Hussey and Tim Curry as Pennywise.

The group working on the new It have a spate of cult classic film remakes in the works. For instance Kajganich is also currently writing a remake of John Carpenter’s classic thriller Escape From New York for New Line Cinema. Roy Lee – who produced the successful 2002 remake of the Asian horror The Ring – is overseeing a new Creepshow movie, as well as another chapter of the ‘Ring’ series, aptly titled The Ring Three. Both films are due in theaters in 2011. Dan Lin – who helped shepherd the Infernal Affairs remake, The Departed, as well as the highly anticipated Terminator Salvation and the upcoming Justice League: Mortal for 2011 – is a producer on Sherlock Holmes, due in theaters later this year. Doug Davison – who produced the breakout hit The Strangers, and the not-so-successful remake of the Asian horror movie The Eye – is also a producer on the upcoming films Creepshow and The Ring Three. Davison is also producing the movie Alone, the next horror film from The Strangers writer/director Bryan Bertino. Alone is currently scheduled for release sometime this year.