It: Welcome To Derry Answers Every Question You Were Too Afraid To Ask About Pennywise

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by Katelyn Mitchell Jewett

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. Game Rant 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

It: Welcome to Derry

Muschietti's previous films It and It Chapter Twoare 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."

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Image courtesy of HBO Max

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

Stephen King

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. 

Read the full article on GameRant

This article originally appeared on GameRant and is republished here with permission.

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