Bill Skarsgard’s Pennywise has fast become
one of horror’s most striking villains with his droopy lip, wall-eyed look and iconic
red and white make-up joining the rogues gallery of horror icons such as Freddy Krueger and
Michael Myers. But there are some fascinating and terrifying
early designs for the evil clown that didn’t make the final cut. Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers, I’m Jan and in
this video I’m revealing nine horrifying cancelled Pennywise designs and transformations you
never got to see in IT Chapters One and Two. And if you’d like a chance to win an awesome
Pennywise Funko Pop, be sure to subscribe and keep watching for more details. Before arriving at the final look for Bill
Skarsgard’s Pennywise, director Andy Muschietti made a sketch in 2015 of what he thought the
murderous clown should look like. That sketch formed the basis for a set of
concept art by Daniel Carrasco and although some of the features of these early designs
such as Pennywise’s red and white make-up were kept, other parts were scrapped and instead
Muschietti opted to give the villain some more pronounced baby-faced features such as
big eyes and apple cheeks as he felt the contrast of the character’s child-like features and
his terrifying behaviour would make him all the more disturbing. Although these early designs are very cool,
a young child would have likely run a mile as soon as they set eyes on such a clown. Skarsgard’s Pennywise with his cherub-like
cheeks, thick lips and more carefully manicured hair is less immediately haunting in its appearance,
which is part of what helps it lure children into its gruesome traps. Watching Pennywise transform into a giant
spider-clown was pretty awesome in Chapter Two. And the final design was a vast improvement
on the spider form that IT took on at the end of the 90s miniseries; though obviously,
there’s a difference in budget between the TV show and films and the technology’s advanced
massively since then. Still, part of the terrifying realism of the
spider-clown comes from the fact that Bill Skarsgard filmed these scenes in a motion-capture
suit so that the CGI monster retained many of the actor’s facial features. And although it was pretty freaky seeing Pennywise’s
head and torso attached to giant sharpened spider-legs, early concept art revealed in
The World of IT book shows a different design that also gave the hybrid monster some disturbingly-long
human-like arms that had fingers not just on the hands, but running all the way up the
arm, giving it a kind of caterpillar-style look. In this design, it seems like IT was grabbing
either Richie or Eddie in a similar way the IT spider did to Eddie in the TV series. We’ve seen Pennywise transform himself into
some pretty gross beings to terrorise the Losers such as the rotting, diseased Leper
that attacked Eddie outside the Neibolt House. However, an unused design for the spider-clown
gave Pennywise a rather vicious set of teeth on his derriere in what the concept designer
Vincent Proce called the Pennywise Arse Mouth. The way this worked is that the upper parts
of each of Pennywise’s main four spider-legs had hidden jaws with grinding teeth that when
put together formed what was effectively a lethal mouth in the creature’s butt. Then when Pennywise trapped a victim below
him, the jaws would open up to attack. Just imagine if we’d seen that in the final
film, it would probably have spawned a whole series of memes to rival Pennywise the Dancing
Clown! Watching the once powerful spider-clown Pennywise
shrink into a melted baby version of himself during his death scene was quite a sight to
behold and reminded me in some ways of an infant Benjamin Button! But before the filmmakers arrived at the final
look for Pennywise during his last moments on earth, they toyed with other options including
a many-eyed version of the shrunken baby-clown. Yes, after the Losers had beaten down the
evil clown with the power of belief and insults, there was almost going to be a version where
we would have seen baby Pennywise’s still over-sized head covered in a grotesque mass
of eyes. The inspiration behind all those eyes on the
spider-clown could be the fact that real-life spiders have multiple eyes. Or perhaps it’s a nod to the various many-eyed
beings in mythology and fiction. Either way, a multi-eyed and shrivelled Pennywise
would certainly have been the kind of freaky, disgusting creature you wouldn’t have been
able to stop looking at! And it might have been even creepier if those
many eyes also had Pennywise’s signature creepy wall-eyed look, shifting some of them in opposite
directions to the others. There’s also some more concept art in the
World of IT book of regular Pennywise with extra eyes in his forehead and also running
along the sides of his jaws when he opens them to reveal the deadlights. And that too is truly the stuff of nightmares! Another very creepy unused design for the
final Pennywise spider had the clown’s head wedged in the stomach of a big body. Above the clown’s head was a disturbing skull
with outstretched arms. Then rather than well-defined spider-legs,
this monster had a mass of tentacle-like appendages below. And there’s another surreal creature design
with tentacles as well as claws which give it the feel of some kind of gross underwater-hybrid
monster. And one of the tentacles even has teeth and
eyes on it! There’s something of a baby-like quality to
these designs as well, which makes me think of the awesomely horrific baby bug creature
that emerges from one of the fortune cookies to terrify the Losers at the Chinese restaurant. And is a reminder that they’ve never been
able to have babies themselves and have to retain child-like beliefs in order to defeat
IT once and for all. Another set of unused Pennywise spider designs
seem to tip their hat to the spider version of IT from the TV miniseries. The body is thicker on these designs than
the final version in the film, and this particular shot of the spider raised up on its legs exposing
its abdomen reminds me of how the TV spider revealed the deadlights to the Losers in the
final showdown. That was also the monster’s weak spot and
the place where the Losers pulled out IT’s beating heart to defeat the evil entity in
the miniseries. A weirdly mesmerising transformation for Pennywise
that Andy Muschietti wanted to include was called “The Concentric Nightmare”. In The World of IT book, Muschietti describes
this unsettling look as “like a sock being turned inside out.” Accompanying the director’s sketch of this
Pennywise monster are additional faces and eyes that the monster’s head would seem to
transform into. According to Muschietti, the “Concentric Nightmare”
did appear ever so briefly in Chapter Two, just after Eddie throws the spike Beverly
gave him through Pennywise’s mouth to stop it from deadlighting Richie. When the spike sticks in Pennywise’s throat,
a version of the “Concentric Nightmare” appears in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment before
Pennywise falls backwards and is stabbed. It’s likely that this particular Pennywise
design was virtually scrapped in the end because they wanted to go with more instantly recognisable
versions of IT that called back to previous incarnations of the character we’d seen throughout
the movies. Also perhaps the concentric design was a little
too complex to work effectively in the fast-paced, strobe-lit finale. Mrs Kersh’s transformation into the giant
witch that terrorises Beverly back at her old home happens off-screen. But in early concept art, the plan was that
Bev would see the old lady turn into the many-mouthed Pennywise monster in front of her eyes. Some of these early designs for the witch
look even more terrifying than the one that ended up on screen. But I can see why they cut the character’s
transformation scene as it makes the witch’s sudden appearance even more of a shock. There’s an intriguing early human version
of Pennywise that was actually filmed and shown in test screenings for Chapter One. The scene wasn’t included in either of the
theatrical releases for Chapters One or Two, but we do have a glimpse of what looks like
Pennywise’s early human appearance in this photo. The scene, which was set in the 1600s, had
Pennywise terrorising a mother into giving up her baby for him to eat and is an early
indicator of how It corrupted the inhabitants of Derry to turn a blind eye to his evil. The scene may actually show up in the six-hour
Supercut of both movies that Andy Muschietti is planning and if you want to know all about
that and the other deleted scenes from Chapter Two, tap here for my full deleted scenes video. There’s also a link in the video description. By the way, if you’d like to see even more
of the concept art and amazing behind-the-scene details I discussed in this video, be sure
to take a look at the “World of IT” book. I’ve added links to that in the video description
below. So, would you like to have seen any of these
unused Pennywise designs? Leave your thoughts in the comments and don’t
forget to subscribe and hit the Gleam link below for a chance to win an awesome Pennywise
Funko Pop. The giveaway runs until the end of this month
and the winner will be contacted via email. Tap left for another IT video or tap right
for something else you’re sure to like. If you enjoyed this, then a like is hugely
appreciated and why not unleash your inner movie lover with more videos like this every
week. Thanks for watching and see ya next time. Yippee-ki-yay, movie lovers!
Hey Movie Lovers, did you like any of these unused Pennywise designs? 😃🤡😱
Pennywise Funko Pop giveaway link is here! â–º https://gleam.io/APz1Z/win-pennywise-funko-pop
Pennywise's head is like ice cream melting.
@ 1:21 you can she wear his bald cap starts
I always felt that pennywise is a character that eases you into being afraid of him, like you're not quite scared at first. It's a good thing they didn't make his base form too monster-like, it wouldn't have the same effect
Sick
Use them for dead by daylight lol
IT chapter 3 is happening
"Pennywise Ass Mouth"
Just saying, Pennywise could of survived if he simply moved towns. No one would of connected the dots and Pennywise could of kept on living #Clowmlivesmatter
You do realize that pennywise looks the same as he did in the TV series.
You don't eat Pennywise's ass… Pennywise's ass eats you 😉
Nigga ALL these alternative arts are scarier than what we actually got…smh
At 6:20 they wr goin to make him turn into the nasty Patty from SpongeBob WTH why'd u stop
Seriously? Penny wise is horrifying! Any kid would run far and fast from that!
It's a good thing they scrapped all those other concepts of pennywise clown forms on here they were just plain cheesey and unimpressive they definitely picked the best clown for it in the movies it chapters 1 and two
Old Mrs.Kersch is really scary (I’m referring to the 6 panel shot).
I subed and liked!! nice content i would love to see more!!
0:22 the right one looks nsfw
These mcdonalds commercials are getting out of hand
If they were rejected then maybe they weren't that terrifying…
His face at 3:32 is cute
IT is supposed to be scary…Yet they chose the least scary design and didn’t choose any of these nightmarish ones? Yeah, makes sense *sarcasm*.
You'll float too.
The first one reminded me of the bandersnatch from Alice in wonderland
So you would name Freddy and Michael but not Jason as an iconic look?
His design right now just isn’t scaring to me. The other ones look much scarier.
2:50 Anal vore
Pennywise is the reason I am scare of clowns.
the orange pompom buttons are talked about so much in the book that it sucks they used red, but I get it.
i probably shouldn’t be watching this at night but, here i am