There are a handful of scenes Stephen King fans would love to see in It Chapter Two—including a certain spider-thing, perhaps—but what does the master of literary horror want to see in the conclusion to this two-part adaptation of his epic novel? That’s a solid question, which is why It director Andy Muschietti took the time to ask. Speaking with Collider, Muschietti set the record straight about a recent rumor suggesting that King himself had written an all-new scene for It Chapter Two. While that’s not true, Muschietti says he did send King a copy of the script and asked for the author’s input. King responded by requesting the inclusion of two scenes from the novel, and though he made it clear that Muschietti was under no obligation to do so, the director seemingly obliged.
According to Muschietti, these are the scenes Stephen King really wanted to see in It Chapter Two (potential spoilers follow, of course):
There were things that were already on their way to land in the movie. He’s a fan of Paul Bunyan and specifically Paul Bunyan chasing young Richie. So that was great because I was a little bit on the fence with that and when Steve said, ‘Gotta put it in the movie; can we see it in the movie?’ I was like, ‘Yes, of course!’
The Paul Bunyan thing isn’t exactly a surprise—we already caught a glimpse of the statue in the trailer, seemingly confirming that Muschietti included one of the creepier moments from the book, in which Pennywise possesses a Paul Bunyan statue to torment Richie. As for the other scene, Muschietti explains:
And the other one was the rolling standpipe at the end of the book when Derry collapses into the sinkhole and it all floods. There is a scene where the standpipe basically collapses and starts rolling down the hill, and for some reason, it’s one of Stephen’s favorite episodes in the book and, it’s funny actually. The whole episode is seen by a guy that’s smoking a splif and he’s looking and he says something like, ‘That’s Steven Spielberg,’ something like that, because of the scope of the scene. Well, we couldn’t go that far because I basically wanted to end the movie on a more emotional note, more intimate, more about the feelings of this group of characters.
Muschietti also says making that particular scene “would have sucked probably half the budget of visual effects,” so it wasn’t exactly reasonable. It Chapter Two stars James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, James Ransone, Isaiah Mustafa, and Bill Skarsgard, and hits theaters on September 6.