It sequel gets 2019 release date

It’s official: A sequel to the massively popular Stephen King adaptation It will creep into theaters Sept. 6, 2019, Warner Bros. announced Monday.

The untitled follow-up will open over the same post-Labor Day frame as its predecessor, which set box office records when it debuted with a $117 million weekend earlier this month. A sequel was all but assured given the first film’s critical and commercial success, and the fact that it adapted only half of King’s 1986 horror novel.

Directed by Andy Muschietti (Mama), It stars Finn Wolfhard, Sophia Lillis, Jaeden Lieberher, Jack Dylan Grazer, Chosen Jacobs, Wyatt Oleff, and Jeremy Ray Taylor as a group of unpopular kids in small-town Maine who battle an evil presence (the titular “It”) that feeds on fear. Bill Skarsgard portrays It in its preferred form, a bloodthirsty clown named Pennywise.

The sequel will revisit the characters 27 years later, when they return to destroy It for good. But Muschietti told EW recently that the second installment would still include their young counterparts. “On the second movie, that dialogue between timelines will be more present,” he said. “If we’re telling the story of adults, we are going to have flashbacks that take us back to the ’80s and inform the story in the present day.”

The It sequel, which will feature Imax screenings, is currently slated to open against an untitled Blumhouse Productions project.

Warner Bros. also announced Monday that the untitled WB Animation film previously scheduled to open June 1, 2018, has moved back to July 27, 2018, and is now titled Teen Titans Go!