Stephen King sells a lot and there are good reasons for that. His output is constant and what he writes is never less than interesting, but he also has absolutely extraordinary novels. Many of them are capable of withstanding the test of time. It is hard to imagine a future where King is not remembered decades after his death, unlike most bestselling authors. Even if it is only for a handful of his works and not for the bulk of them.
Among that handful, it seems quite evident that one of the chosen ones will be It. The novel published in 1986 caused a sensation for knowing how to do two things with extraordinary finesse: capture the everyday miseries of a town and reproduce a primordial horror in a way that was everyday and easily representable. A clown.
Being an absolute bestseller that even triumphed with critics, it should not surprise us that there have been several adaptations for film and television. All of them notable, we must say. There has yet to be an adaptation of It that does not showcase the genius of the original novel, although it is undeniable that the 2017 films, It and It Chapter 2, by Andy Muschietti, managed to capture the imagination of viewers in a special way. And now they return with an HBO series that promises to take us even further.
A series with many production problems
It – Welcome to Derry is a prequel to the movies that premieres on HBO Max on October 26, promising to delve into the origins not only of Pennywise, the sinister clown, but also of Derry, the town in Maine where the events of the movie take place. But all the sinister and dark elements of the movie and the series have also brought bad luck to its production. Because we could have had it among us much earlier.
The series has been in development since March 2022 and received the green light in February 2023. Although filming began in May 2023, the 2023 writers’ strike caused it to halt for months. And they had to rethink everything, finishing the filming of the series in August 2024.
But that had its virtues. The first of them was to ensure that Bill Skarsgård could return to play Pennywise in the series. Another is that Andy Muschietti has had the opportunity to direct at least the first four episodes of the series. This means that, at least the first half of the series, has a good part of those involved in the films directly involved in this series.
For the rest, we can expect this story to answer many questions that remain unanswered. With three seasons in mind, set in 1962, 1935, and 1908, the idea is to see the evolution of Derry over the decades every 27 years: the time it takes for Pennywise to awaken after each massacre. This will also serve to explore more deeply its origins and, it seems, provide us with the definitive version of where this entity from beyond time comes from.
To know more, we will have to wait very little. The first episode will be available on October 26, and from then on, we will be able to watch one episode weekly. But if they are as good as the movies, we have no doubt that we will have at least the three planned seasons.
