Bill Skarsgard, the man behind the creepy clown Pennywise in the newest film adaptation of Stephen King’s It, has been selected to play the cute comic character Moomintroll in the new film Moomins and the Winter Wonderland, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Skarsgard has been featured in a large amount of films, most recently seen in Atomic Blonde as the vigilante character Merkel.
Moomin is a large series of books and comics created by the late Tove Jansson, who wrote the series from 1945-1993. The Moomins are hippo-like characters that go on various adventures, and the new film looks to follow a Christmas/winter theme. The last Moomin film, Moomins on the Riviera, released in 2014 on what would of been Jansson’s 100th birthday. The popularity of the Moomin characters is huge in Northern Europe, with even a theme park titled Moomin World in Finland built just for the series.
Moomins and the Winter Wonderland also has brought on a star-studded Swedish cast that includes Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl) and Skarsgard’s father Stellan (Good Will Hunting, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo). The film is being directed by newcomers Ira Carpelan and Jakub Wronski, while the screenplay is being tackled by Carpelan, Małgorzata Więckowicz-Zyla, and Piotr Szczepanowicz. There is currently no release date, and we hope to see the film in American theaters by the end of this or next year.