Andres Muschietti wants Jessica Chastain to play an older Beverly in the 'IT' sequel.

Andres Muschietti

Andres Muschietti

The 44-year-old filmmaker helmed the new adaptation of Stephen King's 1986 novel and Muschietti - who worked with Chastain in 'Mama' - wants to see her in the next film.

Speaking to Variety, the filmmaker said: "Jessi is an amazing actress and a very good friend and I would love her to play Beverly.

"She loves the movie and it feels like the planets are aligned in that sense, but we still have to make that happen.

"There are a lot of ideas for the rest of the cast that I'm playing with, but it's a bit too premature to say those names right now."

'IT' - which is now the highest grossing R-rated movie - follows a group of youngsters who are faced with their biggest fears when they square off against the evil clown Pennywise in Derry, Maine, after multiple children go missing.

The surviving kids mature into adulthood and are forced to revisit their horrors as one by one they encounter Pennywise again and a sequel has already been announced looking at the adults perspective.

In the same interview Muschietti confirmed that the sequel will be "going back to the summer of 1989" where the first film is set in order for the characters to find out how to kill Pennywise.

He said: "We are going back to the summer of 1989 and if people love these characters and actors the way I do, it's going to be a blast to go back to 1989 in the second one.

"I don't want to go back just for that, I want to make those flashbacks essential in the plot where in order for the Losers to figure out the clues to defeat Pennywise, they have to retrieve their memories from the past."