Go back to where it all began in Welcome to Derry, an upcoming series reportedly in development at HBO Max. Per Variety, the gears have started turning at the streaming service on a planned prequel series set before the events of the It movies based on the Stephen King novel. According to the report, Welcome to Derry will start in the 1960s, leading up to the events of 2017's It: Chapter One. Word is the series will detail the origins of Pennywise the Clown.
It: Chapter One and It: Chapter Two director Andy Muschietti will be on board to executive produce Welcome to Derry alongside Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs. Reportedly, Muschietti developed the prequel story with Fuchs penning the script. Warner Bros. Television will be the studio behind the show. Neither Warner Bros. nor HBO Max has commented on the news as of this time.
It was originally conceived as a horror novel by Stephen King in 1986. The story was famously adapted into a television miniseries for ABC in 1990 by director Tommy Lee Wallace, who co-wrote the adaptation with Lawrence D. Cohen. An acclaimed adaptation, the miniseries featured Tim Curry in one of the veteran actor's most popular roles as Pennywise the Clown. It is still widely regarded as one of the more revered King adaptations.
Andy Muschietti released the first It movie in 2017, which was penned by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga, and Gary Dauberman. It was a tremendous success, garnering great acclaim and becoming one of the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time. It was followed by a sequel, 2019's It: Chapter Two, with Muschietti directing using a script by Dauberman. Though the movie did not reach the same levels of financial profits, it was still a tremendous success, and there have been rumors and reports of a third installment since, but nothing has really come to fruition before the report of this prequel series.
It: Chapter Three Could Still Happen One Day
When It: Chapter Two was released in 2019, screenwriter Gary Dauberman addressed the potential future of the series. Nothing was planned for a third film at the time, though Dauberman was optimistic about expanding upon the story they'd told in the previous films. The writer notes how this Stephen King-crafted universe was more than rich enough to get more than just two films' worth out of, teasing that there could be more to come of Pennywise the Clown in one way or another.
"I do think it’s possible," Dauberman told Comic Book Movie about the possibility of a sequel. "Anything in the Stephen King Universe interests me but there’s only so much of the story we could tell in the two movies. There are definitely elements of the novel you could expand on and make its own movie. It’s just a question of whether or not people want to see it but I do think It was on this planet for a very, very, very long time and that’s a lot of bloodshed and a lot of stories to tell and I think you could do that for sure."
If Welcome to Derry is an origin story for Pennywise the Clown as reported, there's a good chance Bill Skarsgård could appear in the series, but his potential involvement is not clear. Given his unique performance in the previous movies, however, the actor's inclusion may just be mandatory for it to be embraced by the fans.