It … is happening again.
Following the massive success of the recent two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s It, the concept will now be turned into a television series for HBO Max. Rather than adapt King’s massive novel yet again, this new show will be a prequel series.
According to Variety, the new series is titled Welcome to Derry, named after the town where the events of It (and many other Stephen King novels) take place. Here’s how they describe the premise of the show:
The series … will begin in the 1960s in the time leading up to the events of “It: Part One,” the 2017 film based on the Stephen King horror novel. The story is also said to include the origin story of Pennywise the Clown.
The show was reportedly developed by Andy and Barbara Muschietti, the director and producer of It and It: Chapter Two. If the project moves forward, Muschietti would also direct the series premiere.
It is all about the past, and how trauma can linger for decades and reverberate through multiple lives, so the idea of a prequel that would establish how the It movie came to be isn’t far fetched. The creature known as It is supposedly some ancient evil being from another dimension who sleeps beneath Derry and then awakens every 27 to eat human fear. I’m not sure that would be the “origin” that the show would tell — an ancient being arriving on Earth before the dawn of man and sleeping a lot doesn’t exactly sound like riveting serialized drama — but we’ll see.
If Welcome to Derry makes it to HBO Max, it will not be the first IT TV show. Long before Muschietti’s It, the book was adapted to a two-part miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and starred Tim Curry as Pennywise. There’s also been an influx of Stephen King TV series in recent years on cable and streaming, including Castle Rock, 11.22.63, The Outsider, Lisey’s Story, and The Stand.
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