You can read my full review of the marketing for It Chapter Two at The Hollywood Reporter.
Online and Social
Warner Bros. actually put together a pretty good website for the movie, offering more than just the usual marketing materials. “Videos” has both of the trailers while “Synopsis” is exactly what it sounds like and “Photos” has a small collection of stills. There’s also more information on “Derry Canal Days” – the experiential event hosted in Los Angeles – and the promotional “Partners” that signed on to support the campaign.
Media and Press
Around the time of CinemaCon in 2018, Skarsgård talked about returning to play Pennywise while promoting his role in the “Castle Rock” Stephen King-based series on Hulu. That “Scare Diego” event included an early look at footage and messages from the cast and crew. Chastain revealed some facts about the movie while promoting X-Men: Dark Phoenix earlier this year and Hader talked about it while promoting the second season of “Barry.”
More first looks, particularly of the adult versions of the characters seen in the first movie, came out over time.
The cast and crew talked about where the characters are in the story just before SDCC kicked off.
With so much conversation about deaging actors because of other upcoming movies, director Andy Muschietti pointed out this movie features the same technology being used because the child actors have aged significantly in the couple years since the first movie was shot.
McAvoy spoke about the process of getting ready for the movie and how he prepared to play the adult version of a character previously seen only as a child. Around that same time Muschietti started hinting there was an extended version that combined both movies into a single feature that may see the light of day at some point. He also commented on how he went about filming the hate crime scene from the book, one that was not featured in the earlier TV adaptation. Conversations around the runtime included some details on how the director made the tough decision on what elements to cut.
While at the movie’s Los Angeles premiere Chastain and others spoke about the pressure they did or didn’t feel to live up to the expectations of the first film.
A profile of Hader arrived as the actor is having a moment, with not just this movie but a number of other high-profile projects putting him in the public eye on multiple fronts. The actor also appeared on “The Tonight Show” to joke around with his old “SNL” pal.
Finn Wolfhard – who plays the younger version of Richie – also received a writeup that touched on his role on “Stranger Things” as well.
The movie’s costume designers were apparently freaked out by how Bill Skarsgård embodied the clown they themselves created. Writer Gary Dauberman received some attention as well.
Overall
In addition to what I said at THR, it’s notable that with the exception of 2018’s CinemaCon, the campaign has happened entirely within the last four months. That’s an incredibly consolidated timeline for what had to be one of WB’s biggest releases in the second half of the year and one that was reported to be among the most anticipated by the audience of the fall.
Picking Up the Spare
Skarsgard appeared, sans makeup, on “The Late Show.” Hader showed up on “The Daily Show” while McAvoy appeared on “The Late Show.”
IMAX released a featurette conversation with the filmmakers. Muschietti also spoke here about the pressure of living up to the scares of the original.
A series of characters posters came out after the movie was in theaters.
Cinematic Slant 