Explanation of Why IT's Most Controversial Scene in the Book Wasn't in The Film; Plus There's a New Featurette
If you've read Stephen King's It and I say controversial scene, you know exactly what scene I'm talking about. If you haven't read the book I'll give you a little run down.
After the Losers Club successfully defeat Pennywise the Clown, they end up getting lost in the sewer trying to find their way out. During this scene, the group of friends begins to lose their unification so Beverly, the one girl in the group, comes up with a solution to bring them all back together. That solution is to have sex with each of the boys... in the sewer. Here's an excerpt from the book:
“I have an idea,” Beverly said quietly. In the dark, Bill heard a sound he could not immediately place. A whispery little sound, but not scary. Then there was a more easily place sound… a zipper. What—? he thought, and then he realized what. She was undressing. For some reason, Beverly was undressing.
Even though the film has an R-rating, I know there was no way in hell that scene would make it into the movie for obvious reasons. These kids are barely even teenagers. During an interview with EW, co-writer Gary Dauberman explains why the scene wasn't in the film saying:
"Besides Georgie in the sewer [the IT opening], I think it's the one scene that everybody kind of brings up and it's such a shame. While it's an important scene, it doesn't define the book in any way I don't think and it shouldn't. We know what the intent was of that scene and why he put it in there, and we tried to accomplish what the intent was in a different way."
From what I hear the way they handled the unification of the group in the film was done perfectly. King commented on the scene back in 2013 on his official site and what he was thinking when he wrote it. He said:
“I wasn’t really thinking of the sexual aspect of it. The book dealt with childhood and adulthood — 1958 and Grown Ups. The grown ups don’t remember their childhood. None of us remember what we did as children—we think we do, but we don’t remember it as it really happened. Intuitively, the Losers knew they had to be together again. The sexual act connected childhood and adulthood. It’s another version of the glass tunnel that connects the children’s library and the adult library. Times have changed since I wrote that scene and there is now more sensitivity to those issues.”
There's a way to pull off what King was trying to accomplish this scene without the sexual act and it will be interesting to see how they pull it off in the film.
I also included a new featurette for the movie called "Welcome to the Losers' Club" that you can watch below and it offers more new footage from the film. Check it out!