James McAvoy has mixed it up with Pennywise the Dancing Clown on the set of “IT: Chapter 2,” and apparently it didn’t go super well. See James Instagram post here.

McAvoy instagrammed the aftermath of his battle with the evil shape-shifting clown (played by Bill Skarsgard) during shooting. According to the post, the result was “two pulled thighs.” The photo shows McAvoy in his chair on set, using “Compresse Froide” (“cold compress” in French — the movie’s shooting in Toronto, which is sorta close to French-speaking Quebec) — to ease the pain.

While McAvoy might have lost this go-round with Pennywise, he promised he wasn’t done with the fight against Pennywise via a hashtag: “#gonnatakehimdowntoclowntown.” We assume that, despite Pennywise being a clown, “Clown Town” is a euphemism for a beat-down and not a place he would actually want to go.

In the second movie of the two-part “IT” film adaptation, McAvoy plays the grown-up version Bill Denbrough, played as a kid by Jaeden Lieberher in the first “IT.” Bill is something of the leader of the group of kids known as the “Losers Club,” and he led them down into the sewers beneath Derry, Maine, (Clown Town?) to fight the demonic clown — and they even managed to defeat it.

Given the dirty look of McAvoy’s clothes and the discussion of fighting Pennywise, it’s a fair guess that McAvoy and the rest of the cast were filming what might be the climactic final battle between the Losers Club and their clown arch-nemesis. In the first “IT,” the final fight between the kids and Pennywise took place in a huge, cavernous room beneath the city, but while they hurt the clown, they didn’t manage to kill it before it escaped down a pipe. If the novel (and McAvoy’s clothes in the shot) are any indication, the final fight between the Losers and Pennywise will likely take them even deeper into the earth, to stop Pennywise from escaping a second time.

Just what that final battle will be like is an open question, however. In the Stephen King novel on which the movie is based, Pennywise isn’t the true form of the creature the kids are hunting, but one of its many shapeshifting masks. The real monster looks more like a giant spider, something we haven’t seen yet.

And then there’s the question of the fight itself. The movie version of the battle with Pennywise in “IT” included some spooky trickery and an emphasis on the kids refusing to be afraid of the clown, which drained its powers, but they still wound up smashing its head with a pipe. The novel battle is different — it’s all mental, with Bill facing down the spider-monster on another plane of existence, beating it with what is basically the pure power of belief. When the adults show up 27 years later, the fight with the spider is pretty similar to that battle.

If McAvoy’s Bill is straining to fight Pennywise (or maybe the spider version of the clown), that suggests a more physical confrontation with the creature than what’s in the novel. That could mean that trying to predict the outcome of “IT: Chapter 2” from the way King’s novel shakes out might be a lost cause. We’ll have to wait for the movie’s release in September 2019 to find out.

A new IT:Chapter Two synopsis has been released and teases the return of Pennywise the clown to Derry, Maine in the upcoming film. The highly anticipated second part adpatation of Stephen King’s 1986 novel wrapped filming last month with the film set for a September release. The first film was a critical and box office hit with a 85% Rotten Tomatoes score and earning $327 million worldwide. Warner Bros. and New Line have released a new synopsis for the sequel that will follow The Losers Club 27 years after the events of the first film:

Because every 27 years evil revisits the town of Derry, Maine, “IT CHAPTER TWO” brings the characters—who’ve long since gone their separate ways—back together as adults, nearly three decades after the events of the first film.

IT: Chapter Two will star Bill Skarsgard, James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, Bill Hader, Isaiah Mustafa, James Ransone, Andy Bean, Jaeden Lieberher, Sophia Lillis, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jack Dylan Grazer, and Wyatt Oleff.

IT: Chapter Two hits theaters on September 6, 2019.

The sequel to the surprise horror smash It sees the return of the Losers Club, but not like we’ve seen them before. It takes place 27 years after the original, as the now-adults are summoned back to Derry to face Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) once again. However, the kids are back for It: Chapter 2…but it’s not just so we have an excuse to see them again. These flashbacks are a plot point.

James McAvoy, who plays the grown-up version of Bill (Georgie’s older brother), told Entertainment Weekly that director Andy Muschietti brought the kids back for a specific purpose. In the novel (and previous TV film starring Tim Curry), all the Losers’ Club kids who leave Derry end up forgetting everything about Pennywise. This includes Beverly (Jessica Chastain), Richie (Bill Hader), Eddie (James Ransone), Ben (Jay Ryan), and Stanley (Andy Bean). The only one who remembers what happened is Mike (Isaiah Mustafa), because he chose to stay behind and become a librarian.

Once the adults come back to Derry in the sequel, their memories begin to return. And that’s where the kids come in. According to McAvoy, Muschietti didn’t want to simply have a bunch of “aha” moments when the adults start remembering their horrific experience. He wanted to show it. Therefore, the original Losers’ Club kids aren’t just there to be in a series of flashbacks; they represent the adults regaining their own memories.

“Instead of us just standing around going, ‘Oh, I remember that time,’ we get to show it to the audience,” McAvoy tells EW. “Which is great, because that would be real sad if we had to say goodbye to that cast that the audience across the world fell in love with. And actually, in a weird way this movie resembles the structure of the book, in that it goes back and forth.”

This could mean things get a bit more metaphorical, as memories aren’t exactly the most reliable things and could be open to manipulation by Pennywise. And it’s clear the sequel is going to be more metaphysical than the first one. In a previous interview with Yahoo!, Muschietti mentioned that the sequel was also going to dive into the “transdimensional” elements from the book—something his previous It film chose not to explore.

He added that there will be a “dialogue between the two timelines,” meaning there’s a chance we could also see the 1989 and 2016 worlds collide in more ways than just gaining a few recovered memories.

It: Chapter 2 comes out September 6.

It Chapter Two is now only a couple of months away and for fans of the book who think they know everything, think again.

Speaking to Digital Spy for the release of Annabelle Comes Home, Gary Dauberman – who co-wrote the first movie and returned for Chapter Two – promised that the sequel will hold some surprises, even if you know the story.

“Oh, absolutely. I can guarantee that. And if you wanna know the specifics as to what, go see the movie,” he teased.

Earlier this week, we got a brand new look at the grown-up Losers’ Club in the sequel, with the likes of James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain and Bill Hader joining the cast.

“When you leave Derry, something happens where you forget it all. I think it’s like a [power] of Pennywise’s,” McAvoy explained of the Losers’ Club’s return to Derry 27 years later.

“Because if everybody could remember what he gets up to every 27 years through history, we’d go, ‘Hey, Derry’s really f**ked up, we should do something about that. We should send in the f**king Army!'”

And even though Dauberman has said the sequel will surprise fans, we do know that it’ll feature the brutal book moment that sees a young gay man called Adrian Mellon attacked by a gang of youths.

“It is an iconic scene in the book and one we wanted to include in the movie,” Dauberman previously noted.

“It is the first attack in present-day Derry and sets the stage for what Derry has become. It is the influence of Pennywise even while he is hibernating, and it’s pure evil what happens to Adrian. These bullies working through Pennywise was important for us to show.”

It Chapter Two is released in cinemas on September 6.

New photos have been added from the It 2 London Premiere, Set and Stills.

Movies / It: Chapter 2 (2019) / 09.02.19 | London Premiere

Movies / It: Chapter 2 (2019) / Stills