The revival of the It movies gave us genuinely good scares at movie theatres for the first time in ages. Following a group of curious suburban kids in America as they fall into the lethal grasp of a fanged killer clown named Pennywise, the new adaptations of the Stephen King horror story, released in 2017 and 2019, were box office gold, raking in over $1 billion for Warner Bros. Now we know that HBO Max will officially produce an origin story TV series, with a creative team forming behind it already.
In news originally broken by industry newsletter The Anker, it was revealed that Warner Bros were workshopping the idea of a show that would take us back to the beginning of the Pennywise story, set in the 1960s, shortly before the events of It: Chapter One. This week, Variety confirmed that production on the show, titled Welcome to Derry, will go ahead.
The origin series is part of a long string of origin story-slash-sequels-slash-spin-offs that Warner Bros are working on, some for television; others for the big screen. Of course, we have the upcoming Wonka origin story starring Timothée Chalamet coming next Christmas, which has recently wrapped filming. There are also rumours of a TV spin-off of the new, Balenciagaified The Batman, focusing on Colin Farrell’s character, The Penguin. HBO Max are also working with Legendary Television on a Dune spin-off for the small screen too, titled Dune: The Sisterhood, about Bene Gesserit, the all-woman cult of mentally superior mind-readers.
Work on Welcome to Derry is still in its early stages, and cast rumours are slim to non-existent, but we now know that it will have two showrunners: Jason Fuchs, who co-produced It: Chapter Two and worked on the story for Wonder Woman; and Brad Caleb Kane, who most recently worked on the scripts for the HBO Max crime drama, Tokyo Vice. Jason wrote the teleplay for Welcome to Derry’s first episode based on a story he developed with Andy and Barbara Muschietti. (Andy directed the first two chapters of It; Barbara produced them.)
No word yet on when the series will start shooting — or, for that matter, get a formal release — but keep your eyes peeled for developments.