Summary
The upcoming television series,IT: Welcome to Derry,aims to bring horror fans back into the horrific world of Pennywise the Clown, but this time, its story will hark back to Stephen King’s most disturbing and tragic events that will bring one of his novel’s most horrifying scenes to life.Stephen Kinghas had an array of adaptations from his novels that have made it to the screen, fromMiserystarring Kathy Bates toThe Shining, but the most recent adaptations ofIt,the 2017 film andIT: Chapter Two,are arguably some of the best. Directed by Andy Muschietti, who also helmed theITduology,Welcome to Derrywill be a prequel to the movies and also see the return of Bill Skarsgård as the killer clown.
Along with Skarsgård, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, Taylour Paige and James Remar will join the cast, as well as Stephen Rider, known for playing Blake Tower in the Marvel Cinematic Universe seriesDaredevil. Although the original 1990ITmovie was shot in Pickering and Port Hope, Ontario, both of which are popular filming locations for small-town U.S. shows, this time, most of the scenes forIT: Welcome to Derrywere shot at the Delta Secondary School in Hamilton, Ontario. Over the course of nine episodes, the series will take place in the 1960s before the events of the film and will also include the origin story ofPennywise the Clown.
IT: Welcome to Derry Will Explore the Black Spot Timeline
In an interview withEntertainment Weekly, a bunch of exclusive first-look images fromIT: Welcome to Derrywere shared, which included a range of characters from the series dressed in attire suitable for its 1960s time period. Although there hasn’t been any reveal, as yet, regarding whom the cast of actors in the series are playing, among the pictures, Jovan Adepo can be seen in his military outfit, suggesting he could be playing a younger Will Hanlon, as well as Paige, Will’s possible future wife, Jessica. Although creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti state in the interview that they don’t want to give too much away, they do confirm that the Hanlon family will play a part inIT: Welcome to Derry.ThenewIT: Welcome to Derryimagesalso suggest a look at how the series will explore the tragedy of what happened during The Black Spot timeline, which is foundinStephen King’sITnovelin the second interlude and briefly mentioned in the firstITfilm, where Mike’s father, Will Hanlon, talks about his painful memories to his son.
The Black Spot nightclub was opened by Will and his friends, whose customer base was mostly black soldiers from the nearby Army base and a place to provide safety. One night in 1930, members of the Maine Legion of White Decency, a radicalized white supremacist group, raided the venue, burning it to the ground and killing the people who had become trapped inside along with it. Mike’s father reveals that he saw a giant bird with balloons sweep down from over the fire, which Mike recognizes as the same bird he saw a few years ago, hence discovering this event to be an earlier sighting of the sadistic killer clown,“IT”.
It’s clear that Pennywise fans the flames of hate already instilled in some characters, soIT: Welcome to Derryshould provide an interesting in depth look intothe killer clown’s originsand deprived psyche, something that hasn’t been unearthed before on screen. Currently,IT: Welcome to Derrydoesn’t have a release date, but the series will be released on HBO sometime in 2025.
