Andy Muschietti (born 1973) is an Argentine filmmaker who directed Mama, It and It Chapter Two, the defining modern screen versions of Derry.
Quick Specs
| Born | Andres “Andy” Muschietti, August 26, 1973, Buenos Aires, Argentina |
| Education | Fundacion Universidad del Cine, Buenos Aires |
| Key collaborator | his sister, producer and co-writer Barbara Muschietti |
| Horror | Mama (2013), It (2017), It Chapter Two (2019), It: Welcome to Derry (2025) |
| Also | The Flash (2023); executive producer on Locke and Key (2020-2022) |
| Companies | Double Dream and Nocturna, both with Barbara |
| Record | It (2017) is the highest-grossing horror film of all time, per Guinness |
Who He Is
Andy Muschietti was born in Buenos Aires to a family of Italian-Argentine descent. He says the obsession started when he saw Close Encounters of the Third Kind at four. He and his older sister, Barbara, both studied at the Fundacion Universidad del Cine, and she has been his producer, co-writer and business partner ever since. His story is really a sibling story.
His apprenticeship was long and unglamorous. He was an assistant director on Fotos del alma (1995), a set production assistant on Evita (1996), a PR manager on Moebius (1996), a second assistant director on Una noche con Sabrina Love (2000) and a storyboard artist. Then, by his own count, he spent about 15 years directing commercials.
The Work, and What He Did in It
An early directing credit was a segment, “Nostalgia en la mesa 8,” in the anthology Historias Breves 3 (1999). The breakthrough was a short called Mama. He shot it in a single day in 2006 and finished it over about two years, around his commercial work, and it was released in 2008. Guillermo del Toro saw it and said it had the scariest scenes he had ever seen. Del Toro then executive-produced the feature version.
Mama (2013): Muschietti’s feature debut, co-written with Neil Cross and Barbara Muschietti. It cost $15 million, opened at number one in the U.S. and made more than $146 million worldwide. Universal wanted a sequel, and he wasn’t interested. He was hired for Universal’s Mummy reboot in September 2013 and was gone by May 2014 over creative differences with the script.
It (2017): he was hired in July 2015 after Cary Fukunaga left the project. Made for $35 million, the film opened to $123.4 million in the U.S., at the time the biggest horror opening and the biggest September opening ever. It went on to $702.7 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing horror film of all time, a record Guinness says it still holds.
It Chapter Two (2019): the second half of Stephen King’s story made about $473 million worldwide. Muschietti slipped himself in, uncredited, as a customer in the pharmacy.
The Flash (2023): Muschietti was the fifth director attached to the long-troubled project. He and Barbara formed Double Dream in April 2021, with The Flash as its first film. It premiered at CinemaCon in April 2023 and was released on June 16. On a $200 million budget it made $271.4 million worldwide, an underperformance he later explained himself (see below). He has a cameo as a reporter eating a hot dog. In June 2023 Warner signed him to direct the Batman film The Brave and the Bold, and gave Double Dream three-year first-look deals with Warner Bros. Pictures, Warner Bros. Television and HBO Max. In December 2024 he said The Brave and the Bold was postponed and that his science-fiction film for Skydance, Drift, would likely come first.
Television brought him back to Derry. After executive-producing Locke and Key (2020-2022), he developed and executive-produced It: Welcome to Derry (2025) and directed four episodes. Through Nocturna, the siblings’ label with Skydance, he produced They Will Kill You (2026), directed by Kirill Sokolov and starring Zazie Beetz. It premiered at SXSW in March 2026.
He also has a long list of announced projects that never happened, from a Shadow of the Colossus adaptation to a Netflix remake of The Howling, announced in January 2020. None of them is in production.
Cool Verified Facts
- The short that launched him was shot in one day.
- Bird Box was once on his list. It was eventually made by Susanne Bier for Netflix.
- He stepped back to executive producer on The Electric State, which the Russo brothers directed.
- In July 2026 Paramount bought The Final Girl Support Group as a film, with Christopher Landon directing and Muschietti staying on as a producer.
Signatures, Habits and Behind the Scenes
- He told the truth about The Flash. In January 2025 he said the film “failed… because it wasn’t a movie that appealed to all four quadrants.” He added that “a lot of people just don’t care about the Flash as a character,” and “when you spend $200 million… Warner wants to bring even your grandmother to theaters.” It is rare to hear a director say that about his own film.
- He hides in his own films: a pharmacy customer in It Chapter Two, a hot-dog-eating reporter in The Flash, a subway busker in Musica (2024). The cameos are tiny, uncredited and easy to miss.
- Barbara is in everything. She co-wrote Mama, has produced every film since, and co-founded both of their companies.
- The commercials shaped him. The visual polish and effects fluency of the It films come from 15 years of advertising.
Why He Matters
By the record books, It (2017) is the biggest horror film ever made: $702.7 million on a $35 million budget, from a director whose only previous feature cost $15 million. With two films and Welcome to Derry, Muschietti has become the screen keeper of Stephen King’s Derry and its clown, and one filmmaking family’s fingerprints are on that town’s entire modern screen life. His path is the story: fifteen years of commercials in Buenos Aires, a one-day short that del Toro couldn’t shake, the highest-grossing horror film in history and a DC flagship. When the flagship stumbled, he went on the record and said why.