Again, I just want to reiterate that I think this movie will be fine, but I'm not sure why some of the earlier posters got so defensive, and went so far as to say as I was preaching on this site. I just honestly think that this book would have been much better told in a mini series (by the director of the first season of True Detective, which is one of the greatest TV shows of all time.) I read this book, and am in love with it. But with that said, I appreciate all the detail and work SK put into it and think a miniseries would work better. If you disagree with me that's fine, but please just give me reasons so we can discuss this civilly instead on getting all upset. For instance, in a 2 hour movie, I don't think Henry Bowers can be devolved enough for us to feel any sympathy for him. I worry that in a movie, Bowers will just come off as some crazy kid who is pure evil and who we all want dead. But in the novel, much of this stems from a terrible childhood led by the truly evil man, Butch Bowers. Again, I'm not defending Henry, but I just feel that in a movie as compared to a mini series he won't be devolved enough for the audience to really appreciate were he comes from as we saw in the novel.
No great book IMO can be done justice on the big screen no matter how talented the director, producer, or actor(s) are, which is why I always encourage people to read the book if they enjoy the movie! (Plus, for a lot of people, myself not exactly excluded, seeing the movie first helps create an easy to remember face when reading the book. This goes double for any book that has a LOT of people in it and sometimes it can be hard to keep those names and faces straight. First time through the book I had a really hard time keeping Bill and Ben straight, but once I watched the 1990 movie I was all, "Oh, right. Bill = John Boy and Ben = Jack Tripper.")
2 or 3 hours is not enough time for a lot of character development, but unfortunately when movies are many hours long most people respond negatively. Character development can be (and often is) exhilarating on paper, but IMO kind of boring on screen. After so much time, you start losing your audience. A mini series would be awesome, but sometimes it's fun to get the "short version" via a movie and (for me) it's sometimes fun to see what different directions the movie takes in order to wrap up a very long novel in a relatively short period of time.
Forgot to add: as bad as it sounds there have been a few movies, or movie reviews, that prompted me to read the book. When Nostalgia Critic tore the Langoliers apart, I immediately watched the movie and read the book and found a story that I really, really enjoy!