He was great in the movie as Richie, but there were a couple of times where I thought, "Hey it's Mike from Stranger Things, when's Eleven showing up?"
Adding to that is the fact that IT is like the original Stranger Things, written as a novel 31 years ago.
Seems like typecasting. But still did a great job, great movie.
Ah that's why he looked so familiar. I was just thinking that where have I seen him.
shareSurprisingly, no. Before seeing the film I thought that was going to be case, i.e., I was going to have difficulty differentiating Mike from Richie because of the actor, the freshness of Stranger Things, and how seemingly similar the two roles appeared to be. But no, to be perfectly frank it became easy to forget that Finn (Richie) was in Stranger Things.
Sure, the connection between Stranger Things and It, along with Finn's casting, is hard to ignore (unlikely his part in the former got him a role in the latter). But the thing is, he was so different as Richie than he is as Mike, all in all I wasn't reminded of his involvement in ST. However, having seen some recent interviews with him, what I did have in mind while watching IT (seen it more than once already) was how in reality he no longer looks and sounds as young as he did in both the show and film. 🙂
I knew it was the kid from the show, but it didn't distract me.
Also I didn't why people are saying that they purposely cast the kid in IT after the success of Stranger Things. I'm pretty sure he got the part of Richie while filming Stranger Things and Stranger Things hadn't blown up yet. And Finn missed all the marketing and stuff and going on talk shows with the other kids around the time Stranger Things was coming out. Or within the first week of the show coming out. He was too busy filming IT. He probably finished filming Stranger Things and jumped right into IT and before Stranger Things blew up to how popular it is. No one behind the camera saw this coming and had it all planned out. They didn't wait for Stranger Things to blow up and then decide to recast Richie so that Finn could play the part or have A part in the movie.
Actually, if they purposely put him IT, they would've made him Bill since Bill was the leader of the group and Finn played the leader of the kids in Stranger Things.
Pretty sure changing the setting of IT to the 80's had nothing to do with the success of Stranger Things either. The movie was already filming before Stranger Things came out.
if mean because he is ugly? then no
shareYep, definitely distracting considering it's a similar genre and he's part of a kid gang on bikes in the 80s.
shareHow is it typecasting when he's playing a completely different character.
shareIt was distracting to me because it felt like the humour and the bad language in the film was snatched from Stranger Things - and while it suits Stranger Things, it feels out of place in IT. It was like they thought, 'hey, we got Mike, now let's make this movie Stranger Things because he's already used these lines'.
And since all Richie did was crack jokes, it was distracting in every scene he was in.
That's funny because the creators of Stranger Things claim that when Finn (Richie) returned from filming It, they wondered what the hell had happened to him because he was cursing up a storm on set. And by their own admission, he had never talked like that before -- certainly not in Stranger Things where the swearing is pretty PG compared to It. And not for nothing, but Richie and Mike don't feel like the same characters at all (at least to me).
And again, this film started filming a full month before Stranger Things was released. So unless the makers of It managed to get their hands on a script or "copy" of Stranger Things - and somehow foretold it was going to be a success - then there's no way they took any ideas from said show.
I don't disagree - I think they do feel like different characters and I also think that the swearing on Stranger Things was much more controlled. However, I still think IT borrowed from Stranger Things, but used the cursing to excess for laughs, which is why Finn Wolfhard becoming much more foul-mouthed after playing Richie makes sense - the control of the TV show was used, but not restrained in the film IT.
I'm not unaware that IT started filming "a full month" before Stranger Things was released - just wanted to point that out. But I don't know how this makes the idea of the film makers borrowing from Stranger Things impossible, or even unlikely. One month is not a long time, full or otherwise (I mean, what is the otherwise? Three weeks?).
Nothing about IT screams 'this was shot in a short amount of time'. From one viewing, I can recall only a few repeated scene locations, with almost every scene taking place in a new location/set. As well, these are child actors. If even one scene in an almost 3 hour film took more than a day...I guess you do the math.