Back to Derry: It Chapter Two Cast, Plot, Box Office

It Chapter Two (2019) is the second half of director Andy Muschietti‘s two-part adaptation of Stephen King‘s 1986 novel It. It follows It (2017). Twenty-seven years after defeating Pennywise the Dancing Clown, the Losers Club return to Derry, Maine, as adults to keep their childhood promise to destroy It for good. Gary Dauberman wrote the screenplay. James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone and Andy Bean play the grown-up Losers, and Bill Skarsgård returns as Pennywise. It runs nearly three hours. The film drew mixed reviews, with Skarsgård and Hader widely praised and the runtime widely criticized, and it grossed $473.1 million worldwide.

At a glance

Release date	August 26, 2019 (Regency Village Theatre premiere); September 6, 2019 (US)
Director	Andy Muschietti
Writer	Gary Dauberman (screenplay)
Based on	It (1986) by Stephen King
Starring	James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Bill Skarsgård
Runtime	169 minutes
Rating	R (US)
Budget	$79 million
Box office	$473.1 million
Franchise	It (Stephen King franchise): sequel to It (2017)

Plot summary

In 2016, Pennywise returns to Derry and kills a young man, Adrian Mellon, after he and his boyfriend are attacked by homophobic teenagers. Mike Hanlon (Isaiah Mustafa), the only Loser who never left town, calls the others home. Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy), now a novelist, Beverly Marsh (Jessica Chastain), Richie Tozier (Bill Hader), Ben Hanscom (Jay Ryan) and Eddie Kaspbrak (James Ransone) all come back. Stanley Uris (Andy Bean) takes his own life rather than return.

The rest arrive with only fragments of their memories. Mike believes a Native American ritual, the Ritual of Chüd, can destroy It. To perform it, each Loser has to find an object from childhood, which sends them on separate, nightmarish trips through Derry. Meanwhile, Pennywise frees their old tormentor, Henry Bowers, from an asylum and sends him after them.

Spoiler section: the ending

In the caverns beneath the Neibolt Street house, the ritual fails. Mike admits it never worked for the tribe that first tried it. It becomes a giant spider-clown and traps the Losers in their worst memories. Eddie saves Richie but is fatally impaled. Realizing It can be made small, the Losers taunt it until it shrinks into a pathetic, infant-like form. Mike tears out its heart, and they crush it with their hands. They have to leave Eddie’s body behind as the cavern collapses. Afterward, their scars fade. Ben and Beverly marry, Richie carves his and Eddie’s initials back into the Kissing Bridge, and Mike reveals letters Stanley wrote before he died, explaining that his death was meant to make his friends stronger. He signs off, “We’re Losers, and always will be.”

Production and behind the scenes

A second film was planned from the start. In 2016, producer Roy Lee said the project was being “envisioned as two movies.” Muschietti called the sequel “the second half, it’s not a sequel,” set 27 years later, with flashbacks to 1989. New Line announced the September 6, 2019, release date in September 2017, days before the first film opened, and Dauberman returned as writer. Casting famously followed the young cast’s wishes. Asked in 2017 who should play their adult selves, Sophia Lillis chose Chastain and Finn Wolfhard chose Hader, and both were cast. Chastain had worked with Muschietti on Mama. McAvoy, Ransone, Ryan, Bean and Mustafa joined in 2018, and Javier Botet played some of It’s other forms.

Filming ran from June 19 to November 2018, with a budget of $79 million, at Pinewood Toronto Studios, where the sewer sets were built, and on location in Ontario. Port Hope again stood in for Derry, its town hall serving as the library, and the Pennywise house set was built and burned in Oshawa. The returning young actors were digitally de-aged to match their appearance in the first film. Benjamin Wallfisch’s score used a larger orchestra and choir than the first film’s, bringing back its themes “with more scale and ambition.” Warner Bros. spent $95 million promoting the film worldwide.

Release and reception

The film premiered in Los Angeles on August 26, 2019, and opened on September 6, setting a Fandango record for horror advance ticket sales. It debuted to $91 million, the second-biggest horror opening ever behind the first film, though more than $30 million less than its predecessor. Some exhibitors blamed the softer start on mixed reviews and the nearly three-hour running time. It earned $211.6 million in the US and Canada and $473.1 million worldwide, and Deadline estimated a net profit of $169 million. It holds 62% on Rotten Tomatoes and 58 on Metacritic, with a “B+” CinemaScore, the same as It.

Christy Lemire of RogerEbert.com called it “a sprawling, unwieldy mess,” but said its casting and “deliriously ghoulish” effects kept viewers hooked. Richard Roeper found it less frightening than the first film, despite Skarsgård’s “disturbingly effective, all-in performance.” Some critics objected that the film presents Stanley’s suicide as a noble sacrifice, which is not how the novel treats it. Hader won the Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Legacy and influence

Together with its predecessor, which earned about $702 million, It Chapter Two took King’s novel past $1.1 billion at the worldwide box office. Most critics rated it below the first film, but Hader’s performance was a consistent highlight. His Richie’s hidden sexuality, which Pennywise uses to taunt him and which the ending confirms with the initials on the Kissing Bridge, runs through the whole film. Skarsgård suggested a third film could only be a prequel, as “the book ends where the second movie ends.” That idea became HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry, a prequel series developed by the Muschiettis and Jason Fuchs, which premiered on October 26, 2025, with Skarsgård back as Pennywise. His success in the role also helped land him Count Orlok in Nosferatu (2024).

Trivia

Stephen King has a cameo as a pawn shop owner, Muschietti appears as a pharmacy customer, and director Peter Bogdanovich plays himself, directing the film of Bill’s novel.
Filmmaker Xavier Dolan plays Adrian Mellon.
Guillermo del Toro was nearly cast in a cameo as a janitor.
King’s son, the author Joe Hill, was meant to appear in a flashback that was cut from the script.
A golden turtle statue in Ben’s home nods to Maturin, the cosmic turtle of the novel.
The synagogue in the film is Congregation Knesseth Israel in Toronto.