Ben has been given Mike’s role of Derry detective, and Mike’s major contribution to ‘killing’ Pennywise is the aforementioned bolt-gun he brings into the sewers. In the film version, Mike’s parents were both burned to death in a fire and he now works for his grandfather, reluctantly killing sheep with a bolt-gun. He brings this knowledge to the Losers’ Club to help them piece together ITs timeline, while his keen nose for history stays with him as an adult, where he becomes Derry’s librarian. In the book Mike’s parents are very much alive, and he spends his time helping his father with chores and listening to stories of the history of Derry.
Mike has had the most dramatic character shift of all the Losers’ Club in his journey from book to film.
Eddie’s leper appears in both (though he's somehow less.vulgar in the film), as does Bev’s blood-spurting sink. Stan’s painting lady and Mike’s burned parents are inventions for the film, while Pennywise the Dancing Clown himself makes up much of the bulk of the scares. The book’s monsters include a werewolf, the Gill-man, the mummy, and later, Frankenstein’s Monster. IT takes the form of the kids’ greatest fears, and in Stephen King’s novel these fears were firmly based in the pop culture of the ‘50s. Instead, Wolfhard’s Richie is an annoying little brother type who talks about his junk and cracks wise too much, but lets slip just enough of his heart that we like him anyway. The Richie in the book is still a trashmouth who can’t keep quiet, but his incessant ‘voices’ are definitely best left in the past (including a couple that are super racist), and having an entire movie worth of them would have been utterly exhausting not just for the audience but for actor Finn Wolfhard. Let’s talk about Richie, whose character overhaul in the film is one of its better decisions.
This also means that the ‘adult’ part of the story that we will see in IT: Chapter 2 takes place not in the ‘80s, but in the present day. IT (2017) takes place between 1988 and ‘89, where Batmania ruled Derry and Gremlins posters plaster walls, and the kids are generally just a little more world-weary and relatable - particularly Richie - to modern day audiences. The Losers’ Club in Stephen King’s novel first face their fears between 19, where they spend their time going to movie matinees and reading Lil Lulu funnybooks, or building a dam in the Barrens, or pretending to hunt a tiger in an innocent game of make-believe. The most immediate overhaul in IT (2017) is its time period.
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