We have some excellent news about Welcome to Derry! HBO Max (that is what it is called again, truly) is set to release the IT prequel series called Welcome to Derry this fall, and now, we know the release window for the upcoming series.
After an Instagram post from the network on Friday, fans can now set their schedules to watch the series beginning in October 2025. This makes complete sense, as that means it can be watched and streamed during the run-up to Halloween.
We weren't sure, until this week, when Welcome to Derry might come out. While we know the series will premiere in October, HBO Max has not announced the official release date yet.
Welcome to Derry will be set in the 1960s and explore the origins of Pennywise when he made an appearance in Derry, Maine. Bad stuff happens, and children disappear, and there is the obvious question of, "Why don't people move?"
The series is not based on any specific work by Stephen King. Instead, it's a play on what King offered in It. The author has also given his approval for the new series.
Bill Skarsgård will return as Pennywise, with the amazingly great Joshua Odjick set to play some kind of role. King won't write any of the episodes, but Andy and Barbara Muschietti are co-creators of the series, and they co-directed it, as well. In other words, Welcome to Derry is likely set up to be a grand and scary success.
We all know King writes great stories. This isn't breaking news, of course. He has been a successful writer since the early 1970s, and he will continue to be well into the future. We might not want to be in the mind of the arguably greatest writer of horror in history, but heck, maybe he doesn't want to be there either.
The reality is that King's stories can translate extremely well to the screen. Besides his scarier stories, Shawshank Redemption and Stand By Me are terrific. But let's be honest; we want to be frightened when it comes to King adaptations.
One of the best of the relatively recent ones of his ilk is 2017's It. When the movie was released, many might have thought, "This again?" And they would have had a right to ask that. Instead, the film was extremely good with Skarsgård as Pennywise the Clown and a group of young actors who were perfect for their roles.
As fans of the film and the book know, the story lends itself to sequels and prequels. Pennywise didn't suddenly show up. He has been around for a long time. Too long, really.
The answer is who wants to believe there is a demonic clown killing children? No one, but viewers likely want to be scared by watching that happen. No one ever claimed the human race wasn't strange.
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