Gerald - you must be from the Netherlands! The first Dutch translation is indeed significantly shorter, but it's not because they shortened the story itself. All the storypoints are there. It's just a very poor translation: lots of shortening / combining / omitting of sentences. Have you ever compared the two translations? It's weird, but interesting.
Anyway, to answer some of your questions, what they are currently aiming for with the movie:
- 2 hours per movie
- A script for part II has not yet been written. They want to start writing once production on part I wraps, hoping to have a summer 2017 shooting / 2018 release date. We'll see.
Budget for the first movie is around 20 million. Since it will be R-rated, it's a bit of a gamble, but I think IT has the strength to at least make the money back.