Summer 1986, Villa Gesell. Many run to the sea, others enjoy the sun. A teenager reads concentrated the pages of a copy, a horror novel. Advance the story. The boy who has in his hands a book by Stephen King is called Andrés Muschetti, is 13 years old and that will be one of his most significant memories. Summer 1958 in Derry. School’s over, the holidays started. Seven children, scattered in their realities and routines, try to plan how they will enjoy time without classes or obligations, while the balloons invade the city. Bill, Ben, Beverly, Eddie, Richie, Stan and Mike; no one knows that that summer they will form the most fraternal friendship, that they will come face to face with their fears and that they will promise to stop Pennywise, That (IT) that devours and pursues them.
Andy Muschietti as a child Photo: Instagram @barbaramus
Summer can simply be the end of a stage, the school. However, Stephen King wrote about the end of childhood, the transcendence of the first memories that mark the personality with fire, who we are and will be. In 1986, the author – one of the most celebrated writers of horror novels – brought to bookstores a story of more than 1,500 pages: “It”. On the summer of that year, on the Argentine coast, a teenager discovered the writer who would inspire his career to become a Latin American promise in Hollywood and who would adapt that same story for film. Andy Muschietti was born on August 26, 1973 in Vicente López, Argentina. She remembers her childhood in the ’80s in Buenos Aires, with her older sister Barbara, today her best-selling companion, producer of her films.
“I was always attracted to film,” recalls the Argentine director.
He was four years old when he first felt the magic of cinema. Another experience in the skin, of those that pointed out his profession. “They took me to see ‘Near Encounters of the Third Kind’ in the drive-in. I absorbed it. It’s one of the earliest memories of my entire life. I was always attracted to cinema,” he told an interview in Spain, ahead of the premiere of his sequel “It Chapter 2”.
Andy Muschietti Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
His fascination with terror began when he was 6 years old. His family watched films of the genre, so the little Barbara and Andy had cinematic influences from a very young age with cycles such as “Journey to the Unexpected”, by the spanish film master and director nationalized in Argentina, Narciso Ibáñez Menta.” That was my experience with terror. It left a big impact on me. Of course I was very frightened but I developed that addiction by re-feeling those emotions,” he said as part of the same report.
“I grew up reading Stephen King. For me he’s a master on how to tell a story,” Muschietti says.
Muschetti further developed his influence on stories of fear with literature. Discovering Stephen King’s writing was a one-way path and he even remembers spending his summer vacation reading “Animal Cemetery,” another of the author’s best sellers. “I grew up reading Stephen King. For me, he’s a master on how to tell a story,” he acknowledged. Art was not present for Andy only from the cinema, but found his passion in drawing and also music. “I learned to draw from a very young background. He was a very shy, introverted. He spent a lot of time alone drawing,” he would tell Mariana Fabbiani years later before the premiere of the first part of “It”.
It Drawing by Andy Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
That talent of his childhood would soon become his work tool, which would allow him to express what he wants, mainly by communicating his ideas to the areas of design and special effects, and by illustrating the terrifying beings of his shortfilms and films. Andy Muschetti used the drawing to create “Mama”, the creepy creature of his short film, which would capture the attention of Mexican director and Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro, who would later accompany him to adapt his creation to cinema.
Another of Andy Muschietti’s drawings Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
The drawing also earned him the creation of Pennywise’s transformations, and even the idealization of visual effects and characterization. With the drawing, Muschetti told Bill Skarsgard – an actor who plays the clown – that he imagined his character with a strabismus in one eye, unaware that he had that innate ability. “What are you going to spend for if I can do it, ” he answered. While his professional growth found him abroad, the first steps of the director today took them in Argentina. Her grandmother, Victoria Caputti, recalls when she told her what she wanted to be when she was grown up and even gets excited about talking about “It.” “To me he’s a super director of Hollywood with a lot of pride. When I was little and I said I was going to be a director, I couldn’t believe it. I told him it was very difficult. And it came,” he said in a television tribute to the director. To his friends, Andy is an artist, “the only one of all the companions who had a firm path”, the pizza lover, a musician who looks on piano and guitar and when he raped for his graduate journey in the program Feliz Domingo. He is the one who did not lose his humility despite walking with stars in Los Angeles, and the one who always listens to you and is attentive. And, also a “loser”, as the group of children protagonist of “It”. “He was also a loser, because we are all losers,” one of his friends reveals, as does Stephen King’s story.
Barbara & Andy Muschietti Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
For Muschetti, there is a “loser” for each person. His is Bill Denbrough, Georgie’s brother, the stutterer and always in front, the friend who is not faithful. “I identify with Bill, so shy,” he said, though he noted that he knew how to keep that shyness in a box and grow up. For his sister Barbara, Andy is a “genius”, who managed to present a first version of his adaptation of “It” in four days, after New Line Cinema proposed to him to direct the film. “It was crazy because it’s a 1,500-page novel that we hadn’t read since our teens. And my brother who is a genius did it,” said the production company in Vorterix.To analyze in depth the figure of Muschietti, Filo.News spoke with journalist and filmmaker Alexis Puig, host of the film Film Tec talk show and coordinator of events and panels at the prestigious pop culture convention, Comic Con.” Andy is an interesting filmmaker with which I feel identified, especially with the film formation he has. Many of his cinematic tastes match many of mine. I was recently watching a movie cycle programmed by him and I was surprised that we matched almost 90%, in terms of his important films of childhood, adolescence and mine. I always name Roman Polanski’s ‘The Vampire Dance’ as one of the most important of my life and he put it in that category as well,” she says.
Andy Muschietti Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
For Alexis “it is interesting” that Muschietti has the possibility to make horror and budget, considering that it is not the genre that national filmmakers frequent and that in his case he triumphed with his production and adaptation of “It”.” Luckily, more and more horror films are being made in Argentina, especially filmmakers of our generation who grew up watching genre, neighborhood cinema, 80s horror films, vampires, murderers, and more,” he adds.
“He is a very affectionate guy, who has not lost this fearful and family issue that we Argentinians have. It’s always very nice to chat with him,” considers Alexis Puig.
In addition to defining him as an interesting director, the journalist and one of the outstanding Argentine filmmakers, expands from his experience and the opportunities that interviewed him: “He is a very affectionate guy, who has nothing to do with the way of moving the filmmaker American, has not lost this family friendly issue that we Argentinians have. It’s always very nice to chat with him.” His demus’ debut opera: “Mom”
In 2001, Andy Muschietti traveled to Barcelona, Spain, where he lived for thirteen years. There he made a three-minute film short, which would capture the attention of Guillermo del Toro, who would recognize that it included the scariest scenes he saw. He then – once he moved to Toronto – came to her proposal to turn his short into a film and with her sister Barbara they got to work. “Mom” hit theaters on January 18, 2013 and grossed more than $146 million, his first commercial film (released by Universal Pictures), with independent dyes. It was produced by Del Toro and featured the lead role in Jessica Chastain, an actress who would accompany him years later in the sequel to “It”.
“Mom” movie
The premiere of “Mama” also impacted Argentina, where the director’s roots lie. The journalist and filmmaker, Alexis Puig had seen the short and coincided with Del Toro: “it was really terrifying.” However, he had his doubts when he found out he would take to the cinema.” When she moved her short to the feature film, at first she was afraid and some hesitation to see if such a short story might have the forcefulness to be brought to the feature film. He obviously made it. It was a film with a lot of influence from Guillermo del Toro,” the journalist says. From Stephen King’s fan to adapting his film and counting on his participation
The same writer who expressed his discontent with the film version of “The Shining”, made by Stanley Kubrick, celebrated the adaptation of Argentine Muschietti’s “It” and even agreed to make a cameo appearance in his film.” I sent a handwritten letter to Stephen King, apologizing for all the creative licenses I had taken. He saw the film and his reaction was immediate, he wrote me an email expressing how much he had liked it and that I should not worry because Iand liked all the changes,” he said on one occasion.
The Muschietti Brothers with Stephen King Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
The opportunity to direct “It” came to the Muschietti brothers after Cary Fukunaga got off the project. Barbara was following the production of the film, as they were both interested in carrying out the film. It was then that New Line Cinema gave the director four days to adapt a first version of what would be the film. Muschietti did it and was chosen to present the bestseller in cinema.
“It is a work that I carried in my heart a long time ago and having the possibility to direct it was very important to me,” Muschietti would tell for years afterward.
“It” – which already featured a first adaptation of a 1990 series, which he later joined in a film – premiered his first part on September 6, 2017, with a cast headed by Jaeden lieberher, Bill Skarsgard, Wyatt, Oleff, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Sophia Lillis , Finn Wolfhard, Jack Dylan Grazer and Chosen Jacobs.For Alexis Puig, the first is a great film. “The first part of It seems excellent to me. Developing in the 1980s it’s much more interesting to shoot because it has so many pop culture icons that can be used in the film. And obviously the guys who are very empathetic,” he says.
Andy Muschietti Photo: Instagram @andy_muschietti
On Thursday, September 5, theaters receive the second part, starring James McAvoy (Bill), Jessica Chastain (Beverly), Jay Ryan (Ben), Bill Hader (Richie), Isaiah Mustafa (Mike), James Ransone (Eddie) and Andy Bean (Stan).
“Andy proved that he had the personality to handle a studio film, with all that means: the pressures, being in the eye of the storm, issues for which you could be a great filmmaker but not be prepared,” says Alexis Puig.
In addition to being a commercial success, both parts of ‘It’ were central to Muschietti’s career. In the words of Alexis Puig: “Andy proved with ‘It’ that he had the personality to handle a studio film, with all that means: pressures, being in the eye of the storm and a lot of other issues for which you can be a great filmmaker but not be ready Rado.” Summer 2019
Not coincidentally, both sides of “It” made it to the cinema when summer is about to end (in the United States). Today, more than three decades later, the boy who read Stephen King, that “looser” – as the children of history call themselves – the boy who watched horror films and drew in solitude, makes history being the Argentinian who came to Hollywood, captivated Guillermo del Bull and that still has an extensive (and promising) way to go. In this note:
