Andy Muschietti first had the idea for It: Welcome to Derry while working on the 2019 film It Chapter Two. It came to Muschietti, who went on to develop Welcome to Derry alongside his sister Barbara, during a conversation with actor Bill Skarsgård about Stephen King's iconic shapeshifting entity.
Muschietti realized that Pennywise's story, at least as he was telling it in the films, was "a big, unfinished puzzle" — we know how It hunts and even how It can be defeated, but not how It came to settle in Derry in the first place, nor why It prefers the terrifying form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. It: Welcome to Derry explores that story by going back in time and exploring some of the earlier "cycles" of terror this small Maine town survived. The Best War Games spoke to Andy and Barbara Muschietti, as well as showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane, about why a Pennywise origin story works so well.
Welcome To Derry Fills In The Blanks About Pennywise
Muschietti's previous films It and It Chapter Two are fundamentally human stories, about a group of outcasts known as the "Losers Club" who team up to take on a supernatural creature who feeds on fear. "It's all seen from the perspective of human characters, and they never get to actually understand what It is. What does It want?" Muschietti explained. He, alongside Skarsgård, who also serves as an executive producer on the show, were particularly interested in exploring why It so often chooses the form of a clown, which is something even Stephen King's original novel never confirms.
"I wanted to play with that. I wanted to go back and complete the puzzle — and, by completing the puzzle, create new enigmas [that] eventually will reveal things not expected by the audience, related to the bigger mythology of It and Its world beyond our dimension."
When plotting out the first season of Welcome to Derry, which takes place in 1962, Andy and Barbara Muschietti drew on the Derry lore catalogued by Losers Club member Mike Hanlon. In Stephen King's novel, Hanlon is the only Loser to remain in Derry after Its first defeat, and he makes it his personal project to research the previous "cycles."
It is Mike Hanlon who discovers that It appears roughly every 27 years to torment Derry, and his notes about the previous cycles appear throughout the book. Mike Hanlon's role as the chronicler inspired the Muschiettis to center Welcome to Derry's first season around his grandparents, Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) and Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige), who move to Derry due to Leroy's job with the military and experience significant mistreatment in the mostly-white town.
Currently, the Muschiettis envision three seasons for Welcome to Derry, told in reverse chronological order and featuring three incidents cataloged by Mike Hanlon:
- 1962 - (1930 in the novel) Several children go missing, Black Spot nightclub is burned by white supremacists.
- 1935 - (1929 in the novel) Derry police engage in a shootout with the Bradley Gang, killing many.
- 1908 - (1906 in the novel) An explosion at the ironworks kills dozens of children during an Easter egg hunt.
Stephen King Loved The Idea From The Start
The Muschiettis had known Stephen King for ten years and considered him a close friend when they brought him the idea for Welcome to Derry, but they were still surprised by just how excited he was for the show. "He's always been incredibly supportive and excited about delving into the parts of the book that are black holes," Barbara Muschietti reminisced. Andy Muschietti revealed that King was particularly excited about the pair's decision to handle the story in reverse chronological order and tell the full story of what he calls the 'Big Three' cycles:
"He was excited about us playing in the sandbox and giving some connecting tissue between these unconnected puzzle pieces that he intentionally put into the book."
Showrunner Jason Fuchs revealed that, although King was deeply involved in every aspect of the process, from reading over scripts to approving casting decisions, the author remained tight-lipped about his thoughts until a few weeks ago. "He put out a thread [on social media]," Fuchs enthused, "saying that the show was amazing, and Episode One was terrifying, and that will forever remain a career highlight... Stephen King and his work shaped my desire to tell stories. It shaped my love for horror. To see that Stephen King approved of the work was incredibly meaningful."
Welcome To Derry Will Be Scarier Than Ever Before
The film duology It and It Chapter Two were terrifying already, but choosing to make Welcome to Derry a TV series instead of a future film let Fuchs, Kane, and the Muschiettis really take the brakes off when it comes to frights. From the very first episode, the show is darker, gorier, and scarier than the films that came before it. Without getting into spoiler territory, there's a much larger focus on body horror and just how bloody and visceral Its myriad forms and strategies for hunting Its victims can be. Fuchs was thrilled to be able to include more body horror in the show:
"I think that [body horror] is a universal fear — the terror of something happening to your body that you can't control. You see that in a pretty spectacular fashion in one of our earlier episodes."
Brad Caleb Kane agreed and added that the fears addressed in It: Welcome to Derry are "generational" and "epigenetic," including "the sins of the father" and "generational trauma." Pennywise the Clown, played once again by Bill Skarsgård, will certainly appear in the show, but viewers will also get to experience new and terrifying applications of Its shapeshifting powers as the development team explores the nature of fear and how the fears It echoes change across generations, even within a single town.
Will the Muschiettis, Fuchs, and Kane bring their expansive, origin-exploring and universe-expanding takes to other Stephen King properties in the future? Nothing has been confirmed, but all four stated that they would absolutely love to work on more King projects. Could Welcome to Derry be the first of multiple origin stories centering around Stephen King's most memorable heroes and terrifying creations? Nobody knows for sure, but it's definitely possible.
- Release Date
- October 26, 2025
- Network
- HBO
- Directors
- Andy Muschietti
- Writers
- Jason Fuchs, Stephen King, Austin Guzman
- Franchise(s)
- IT
WHERE TO WATCH
- Cast
- Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, James Remar, stephen rider, Matilda Lawler, Amanda Christine, Clara Stack, Arian S. Cartaya, Peter Outerbridge, Chris Chalk, Rudy Mancuso, Alixandra von Renner, Dmitry Chepovetsky, Eli Katz, Mark MacRae, Lochlan Ray Miller, Maya McNair, Maya Misaljevic, Hannah Storey, Thomas Mitchell, Chad Rook, Michael Koras, Robert Clarke, Brittany Spiteri, Sean Sansom
- Creator(s)
- Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, Jason Fuchs
