And then there was the creepy clown epidemic that hit the United States and other countries in October 2016, almost a whole year before IT was released.
These sightings weren’t the sneaky IT promotional marketing like some may have suspected, but they nonetheless may have helped drum up interest in seeing Bill Skarsgard’s version of Pennywise.
As King mentioned, a lot of kids tuned into the miniseries, so now that they’re adults, they could watch the first half of IT unfold on the big screen under someone else’s creative vision.
The IT novel had already had already been out for four years before the TV miniseries aired, but for many people, watching Tim Curry’s Pennywise antagonizing the young members of the Losers Club on the small screen was their first time experiencing this terrifying story.