Stephen King followers are already hyped for the return of Invoice Skarsgard because the notorious killer clown Pennywise in HBO Max’s It prequel sequence, It: Welcome to Derry. Now co-creator and director of the 2017/2019 motion pictures, Andy Muschietti, has teased one thing greater than initially anticipated – a possible connection to King’s Darkish Tower novels.
The story of It, printed in 1986, is one in all King’s largest works. Whereas each the 1990 miniseries starring Tim Curry because the evil drive consuming the youngsters of Derry, and the film remake, with Skarsgard skillfully taking up the position, trace on the bigger universe exterior of Pennywise’s searching floor in Maine, neither mission was capable of dive into the cosmic realms King’s novel options. This included the position of the benevolent cosmic turtle Maturin, a creature that can also be current in The Darkish Tower mythology, and is described as one of the vital highly effective forces in all of creation.
Whereas chatting with TV Insider forward of the arrival of It: Welcome to Derry, Muschietti teased how the present will transcend what has beforehand been proven in It tasks and go away a path of breadcrumbs to a a lot wider and extra expansive universe. He mentioned:
“The aim of the present, amongst others, is to open a window to the opposite aspect… and provides the viewers the sensation. All the pieces that’s on the opposite aspect, it’s linked to the Darkish Tower as a result of it’s the identical universe, the macroverse.”
When adapting It for the display screen, each variations of the story dealt principally with the perspective of the younger characters dealing with Pennywise and their fears, and their grownup counterparts reliving the nightmares nearly 30 years later. The prequel seems to be going far past a human story and taking a extra mystical path to the origins of “the eater of worlds.” Muschietti continued:
“After all, being It, we’re seeing all this from the angle of people, principally. On this sequence, there can be greater than hypothesis. We’re gonna have that and provides the viewers glimpses of the opposite aspect.”
The Stephen King Universe Is About to Be Explored Like By no means Earlier than
For followers of Stephen King, the writer’s interconnectivity between tales is known. From the setting of Citadel Rock, the historical past of which flows by early novels like The Useless Zone and Cujo, Needful Issues (when King first mentioned goodbye to Citadel Rock in explosive trend), and the newer Gwendy trilogy, to the handfuls of novels and brief tales which have some connection to The Darkish Tower, King was creating cinematic universes in written type lengthy earlier than it grew to become common in motion pictures and on TV.
Nonetheless, exhibiting these connections on display screen has at all times been tough previously, and even the earlier try and deliver The Darkish Tower to life in its personal proper proved to be a catastrophe. After all, we now stay in a time when every thing has its personal universe, and the boundaries of TV and films don’t imply fairly the identical as they used to. If there was ever a time for the true extent of King’s linked works to be realized on display screen, then it’s proper now.
Whereas It: Welcome to Derry will nonetheless be primarily targeted on the origins of the evil Pennywise, Andy Muschietti’s tease of a Darkish Tower connection can solely assist construct hype for the unrelated, however well-timed, growth of Mike Flanagan’s Darkish Tower mission at Prime Video. Though it’s unlikely that these two exhibits will characteristic a real crossover, as rights points are already tough sufficient for The Darkish Tower, there may definitely be a significant nod to the true epic scale of King’s universe in It: Welcome to Derry than has actually been seen in earlier tasks.
The nine-episode first season of It: Welcome to Derry will float onto HBO Max in October 2025.