Here's your first look at HBO's It prequel series, Welcome To Derry

The television prequel to Andy Muschietti's It movies will premiere on Max in 2025.

By Mary Kate Carr | October 31, 2024 | 1:58pm

Photo by: Brooke Palmer/HBO

Another treat for horror fans this Halloween: HBO has released several images as an It: Welcome To Derry first look. The prequel was developed by filmmaker Andy Muschietti, his sister and producing partner Barbara Muschietti, and screenwriter Jason Fuchs, who collaborated on 2019’s It Chapter Two. The HBO Original series is slated to premiere on HBO and Max in 2025, with four of its nine episodes directed by Andy Muschietti himself.

“This is a book we love a lot, and we felt that there was still a lot of story to be covered,” the Muschietti siblings said in a statement to Entertainment Weekly. “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.”

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Muschietti’s It movies tweaked the timeline of Stephen King’s seminal horror novel, so Welcome To Derry takes place in 1962 and apparently follows the story of Mike’s father Will during one of the recurrences of the It phenomenon. The Muschiettis told EW that the series will explore some of the other 27-year It cycles “using the Black Spot as an event in which many stories are built around.” In the novel, Will Hanlon recounts how The Black Spot, a bar in Derry that catered to Black residents, was attacked and burned down by white supremacists. Though the show creators kept mum on details (“We don’t want to spoil too much”), the It: Welcome To Derry first look photos seem to portray the Hanlon family, plus an ominous image of a sign that reads “Pennywise” with a picture of a clown (above).

As previously reported, Bill Skarsgård is reprising his role as Pennywise for the new show. But It has taken multiple forms, including that of a giant bird at The Black Spot incident, so we may well see other versions. In addition to Skarsgård, the series also stars Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso. You can check out the first-look photos below.