I can say without any hesitation that IT: Welcome To Derry wouldn’t be nearly as anticipated if it didn’t feature the return of Bill Skarsgård as the malicious shape-changer best known as Pennywise The Dancing Clown. While it’s cool that the upcoming Stephen King TV series is going to be diving into the dark history of the titular town from the IT movies, the whole enterprise would have felt lesser if it featured a different actor in the canon’s most iconic role.
Thankfully, Skarsgård did make the decision to come back, and we’ll see him back in his terrifying makeup later this month… but series co-creator Andy Muschietti has revealed that getting him to come back definitely wasn’t the simplest aspect of the production.
Recently speaking with SFX Magazine on CinemaBlend (the new issue of the magazine arriving on October 8), the filmmaker explained that the actor wasn’t totally on-board when IT: Welcome To Derry was first being conceived. Conversations about telling more Pennywise stories were had between the two men on the set of IT: Chapter Two, but Muschietti said that there was indecision caused by the mental stress of playing the intense part and a desire not to repeat himself too much. Said the director/producer,
I think he was a little hesitant at the beginning to play It again because he is something that he did in the past. Also, at that point, when we started talking about the series as something that was real and tangible, he had played a lot of very dark characters, and he was a little hesitant to go into it again. Because, obviously, for someone that takes his work and his art so seriously as him, it takes a toll to live in the head of those characters for a long time.
In recent years, Bill Skarsgård got to have some fun playing the sinister Marquis in John Wick: Chapter 4 and took part in some hand-to-hand combat making Boy Kills World, but he’s certainly best known for his parts in films that go to very dark places, including Barbarian and Nosferatu. One can understand why he might want a bit of a reprieve.
So what ultimately changed the actor’s mind? Andy Muschietti doesn’t claim that it was anything specific; instead, it was apparently just him getting excited about what IT: Welcome To Derry had planned in terms of digging into the character and the story that was being told. Said the filmmaker,
So he was a little hesitant at the beginning – and then something changed. I guess that we started again, going into it and discussing all the virtues of this new story and he decided to do it.
To date, previews for IT: Welcome To Derry have only teased us with Bill Skarsgård’s return as Pennywise (very effectively, I might add), but we won’t be waiting much longer for more. After years of waiting – reports of the project dating back to 2022 – the show is finally ready to debut, and it will be debuting just ahead of Halloween 2025 – specifically on October 26. Also starring Taylour Page, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, and Stephen Rider, the eight-part series will see episode premiere on HBO and be made available immediately for HBO Max subscription holders.