The story of killer clown Pennywise, the entity known as It in the novel by Stephen King, is about to get a whole new chapter this month when It: Welcome to Derry comes to HBO Max. The new series based on the characters and events of King’s 1986 novel, and the double-feature movie of 2017 & 2019, is still a few weeks away, but the series has already been given its first glowing reaction – from King himself.
In 2017, Andy Muschietti delivered the first part of his two-part adaptation of King’s classic novel of small town horror and cosmic evil. It: Chapter One and It: Chapter Two were huge box office hits, pulling in a total box office haul of $1.14 billion and landing plenty of praise from critics and audiences. Now, Muschietti is acting as executive producer on the prequel series that will debut on October 26, 2025.
While critic reviews are not expected to arrive for a week or more, King has been unable to contain himself after seeing the series. In a post on his social media account, King simply said:
“Welcome to Derry is amazing. First episode is terrifying.”
If there is a seal of approval every Stephen King project hopes to get, then it is one from the author himself. It seems that King is happy with Welcome to Derry, and that means audiences should be on board with it too. Whether that is how it pans out is yet to be seen, but with Bill Skarsgård back in the role of Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and the Muschiettis producing, there is a good chance that fans of the movies will be in their element with this unexpected return to Derry.
‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Is Planning Three Seasons
While it is usually hard for a show to guarantee anything about its future from season to season, Muschietti has already laid out the plan that is in place for three seasons of Welcome to Derry to tell the history of Pennywise in reverse order across the century. He previously said:
“We are basing the three seasons of this series on each of these catastrophic events. There’s a reason why the story is told backwards. So the first season is 1962, the second season is 1935, and the third season is 1908.”
Hopefully, viewership of Welcome to Derry will be strong enough for Muschietti’s planned three-season arc to play out in full. The character of Pennywise, for all his child-killing ways, is one of King’s most popular creations. If there is any character capable of carrying a series through multiple seasons, then it would be hard to bet against the diabolical eater of worlds.
- Release Date
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October 26, 2025
- Network
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HBO
- Directors
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Andy Muschietti