Considering all of the major franchise movies and big awards season contenders that are going to be released in the latter half of 2017, it is pretty amazing that the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King's IT is easily one of the most highly-anticipated movies on that slate. All of the footage has done nothing but increased the excitement and now it looks like there is going to be a whole lot of IT to love. The runtime for the movie has been revealed and it is surprisingly long, but that is certainly not a bad thing.

According to the British Board of Film Classification, director Andres Muschietti's IT clocks in at a pretty lengthy 2 hours and 15 minutes. For those who are counting, that is 45 minutes longer than either part of the 1990 two-part miniseries. That means we are going to see a whole lot of Pennywise and a whole lot more of Stephen King's classic novel brought to the big screen Considering how long many horror fans have been waiting to see this movie happen, that is a very good thing, assuming that this adaptation lives up to the hype.

The studio is planning to make a sequel to IT, which will tell the second half of the novel which sees The Loser's Club return to Derry as adults, and the plan is to film it early next year. So, if we assume that both movies will have similar runtimes, we could be looking at 4 and a half hours of Pennywise action. That may sound like an awful lot, especially for a couple of horror movies, but when you consider that the novel is more than 1,100 pages and that the audiobook version of Stephen King's IT clocks in at 44 hours in length, it is clear there is a whole lot to possibly bring to the big screen. If Andres Muschietti does this right, this will allow for the story to be told more faithfully and hopefully live up to the massive expectations that are being placed upon IT.

IT has assembled an impressive cast for the first part of this horrific tale. The movie stars IT an ensemble of promising young actors, including Jaeden Lieberher (Midnight Special), Jeremy Ray Taylor (Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip), Sophia Lillis (37), Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things), Wyatt Oleff (Guardians of the Galaxy), Chosen Jacobs (Cops and Robbers), Jack Dylan Grazer (Tales of Halloween), Nicholas Hamilton (Captain Fantastic) and Bill Skarsgard as the child-eating demonic clown Pennywise. Based on what we've seen in the trailers, Skarsgard absolutely crushes it and it is clear that he is going to be the main reason to show up for this long-awaited movie. We also know that some of the original book will be making it make into the movie, which was left out of the TV version. And that there are some big changes to the small screen story overall.

Since IT took so long to be made into a proper movie, the relatively long running time isn't likely to scare anyone away. With the release date fast approaching, we should be hearing some initial critical reactions soon, which should only help fuel the already raging hype fire for this movie. Just be sure to plan for a good, long, scary night at the movies when IT finally arrives on September 8.