It: Welcome To Derry Will Adapt The Scariest Part Of The Original Stephen King Book

Television Horror Shows

We finally have some concrete plot details for the upcoming series "It: Welcome to Derry." As the title suggests, this will expand upon the two-film adaptation of Stephen King's beloved novel, serving as a prequel to those films. Director Andy Muschietti and his producing partner (and sister) Barbara Muschietti are back (Andy will direct four out of nine episodes of season 1), and they're using this as an excuse to tackle portions of the novel they didn't have time for previously, including arguably the scariest scene from the novel.

Entertainment Weekly recently published a preview of the series, which is due to arrive on HBO and the Max streaming service next year. The show will feature Bill Skarsgard reprising his role as Pennywise the Clown. That is, indeed, scary, but the outlet confirms that the Black Spot sequence from the book is going to be adapted. This is a sequence that pulls from real-world fears, particularly racial violence in America.

In the book, Mike Hanlon visits his cancer-ridden father, Will Hanlon, in the hospital and learns about Will's days in the Air Force, when he and several of his pals opened up a bar called the Black Spot, which largely catered to Black members of the military. One fateful, horrifying night, the club was burned down by a white supremacist group called the Maine Legion of White Decency, leading to the deaths of many Black men who were trapped inside.

It's a truly horrific scene, and one that should absolutely be included in this "It" prequel series. The fact that the show is embracing this reveals that it's willing to portray deeper horrors in Derry beyond just those of Pennywise. Even in a story where a mysterious metaphysical entity feeds on children's fear, sometimes the most evil things are perpetrated by regular humans. Speaking further about how they approached the series, Andy and Barbara Muschietti had this to say:

"This is a book we love a lot, and we felt that there was still a lot of story to be covered. It's so rich with characters and events, we thought we would do justice to the book and the fans by going back into this world. Specifically, we are telling the stories of the interludes, writings by Mike Hanlon based on his investigation that includes interviews he conducts with the older people in the town. In Welcome to Derry, we touch on the usual themes that were talked about in the movie — friendship, loss, the power of unified belief — but this story focuses also on the use of fear as a weapon, which is one of the things that is also relevant to our times."

Welcome to Derry will explore more than just the 1960s

In Stephen King's novel, Mike Hanlon unearths several similar terrifying stories in his attempt to track the origins of Pennywise in the community of Derry, Maine, and the interludes where he's doing his amateur detective work ultimately became the inspiration for "Welcome to Derry." These various tales may also help answer some of the many burning questions fans of the "It" movies still have. The Muschiettis also teased that "We don't want to spoil too much, but we'll say that the Hanlon family is involved."

As viewers may recall, the 2017 movie was set in 1989, which was shifted later on the timeline compared to the book so the modern component of the story could take place in the late 2010s, when the second film was actually released. Pennywise has a 27 year cycle, meaning that this show is largely going to take place in 1962. The Muschiettis further explained how this setting will impact the series, while also pointing out that they are going to use flashbacks to explore other terrible events from Derry's history.

"Twenty-seven years is the dormant period of Pennywise. It's a different part of American history with a new set of fears for children, as well as adults having in mind the cost of the Cold War. Our baseline is 1962, but we do a few jumps to the past.... Every 27 years when It appears, It's cycle is marked by two catastrophic events, one at the beginning and one in the end. We are using the Black Spot as an event in which many stories are built around."

"It" was literally the biggest horror movie of all time. Even though "It Chapter Two" couldn't quite match the heights of its predecessor, it was still a monster hit. So, financially, it makes sense for HBO and Warner Bros. to do this show. But King's novel is a true monster, clocking in at well over 1,000 pages. There is still a lot to explore, and it sounds very much like the Muschiettis, as well as writer Jason Fuchs, are doing just that.

"It: Welcome to Derry" arrives on HBO and Max in 2025.