It: Chapter 2 Circles Jessica Chastain for Adult Bev

Jessica Chastain is in early talks to play the adult Beverly Marsh in It: Chapter Two, a horror sequel that isn't clowning around.

In news that is not at all surprising, but is still very welcomed to hear, the reteaming of Jessica Chastain and director Andy Muschietti on It: Chapter Two just became a lot more likely. The details come out of Variety, which is reporting that the long speculated upon casting of Chastain as an adult version of the character Beverly Marsh has entered the negotiation stage.

While talks are apparently only in the early stages between the actor and New Line Cinema, the production label at Warner Bros. who produced last year’s mega-surprise smash, It, the stars seem aligned for this to come together quickly. After last September’s It blew past expectations and earned $700 million at the box office, New Line fast tracked It: Chapter Two for a Sept. 6, 2019 release date. As that nears, this film will need to be shooting this summer, even as it still is also finalizing talks for director Muschietti to return.

Based on the massive Stephen King novel of the same cryptic title, It is a cinematic saga that was wisely broken up into two films, with only half of the novel was adapted into the 2017 movie. In the book, King alternates between past and present (then 1958 and 1985, as opposed to 1989 and presumably 2019), while visiting the forgotten childhoods of seven souls and the mostly successful, but tortured, adults they grew into being.

It: Chapter Two is being written, like the first installment, by Gary Dauberman and is expected to maintain much of the final creative team behind the previous film, including Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. In the first film, newcomer Sophia Lillis played Beverly Marsh, a young auburn haired girl with a nightmarish home life and predatory father, which makes her the most prepared and unintimidated to face a cosmic monster who has a habit of taking the shape of a malevolent carnival barker.

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Chastain has long been rumored to be the top choice to play an adult version of Beverly Marsh because of her history with the sibling team Andy and producer Barbara Muschietti, who she worked with on 2011’s Mama. Since the release of It, Chastain has been coy about joining the sequel in interviews and in social media, as seen in the below Tweet of support for the film before its release.

Chastain recently impressed many with her turn as Molly Bloom in Aaron Sorkin’s directorial debut, Molly’s Game, which ended up on one of our Top 10 Films of 2017 lists. She can next be seen in a currently unnamed, antagonistic role in Simon Kinberg’s X-Men: Dark Phoenix, which is out in November.