Pennywise the Dancing Clown is once again terrorizing the kids of Derry, Maine.
HBO on Tuesday released a trailer for its IT prequel series Welcome to Derry, showcasing the return of Bill Skarsgård’s Pennwyise alongside a cast of new characters.
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Set in the world of Stephen King’s IT, on which it is based, the upcoming series expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in 2017’s It and its 2019 sequel, It Chapter Two. The series was handed a straight-to-series order in February 2023, and is envisioned for a three-season-run that will be “told backward,” with Season 1 set in 1962, and the yet-to-be-ordered second and third seasons set in 1935 and 1908, respectively, Andy told Radio TU.
“It’s a story that’s based on the interludes of the book. The interludes are basically chapters that reflect Mike Hanlon’s research. They’re fragments of his research. For 27 years, it’s the guy trying to figure out what it is, what did it, who did it, who saw it, and all that stuff,” he shared. “So they talk about catastrophic events from the past, like the fire in the Black Spot…. the massacre of the Bradley Gang, a gang of bank robbers in the ’30s… and the explosion of the Kitchener Ironworks. Every time [Pennywise] comes out of hibernation, there is a catastrophic event that happens at the beginning of that cycle. There’s a reason why the story is told backwards. So the first season is 1962, the second season is 1935, and the third season is 1908.”
The upcoming series marks the second small screen adaptation of King’s 1986 horror novel following Tommy Lee Wallace’s 1990 miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise alongside Richard Thomas, John Ritter, Harry Anderson, Jonathan Brandis, and Tim Reid. It was followed decades later by the two recent feature adaptations, from the Muschiettis and Fuchs.
Alongside Skarsgård, Welcome to Derry also stars Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso.
The series is from Warner Bros. Television and It filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti. Jason Fuchs, who co-produced It Chapter Two, is writing the first episode and will serve as co-showrunner with Brad Caleb Kane. Andy Muschietti is set to direct several episodes, including the first. Andy will direct four episodes of the nine-episode series.
IT: Welcome to Derry is scheduled to premiere later this year, but an exact premiere date hasn’t been released. The show will be available on both HBO and Max, which will soon rebrand as HBO Max.
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