Many of Stephen King’s adaptations fail, primarily because film, as a medium, is completely external and sensory, while fear and fright are much more instinctual, emotional experiences. Add creative liberties and the lack of proper emotional connection with the characters, and it becomes quite apparent why cinematic adaptations of good novels, such as The Dark Tower or Graveyard Shift, utterly failed and flopped at the box office.
Fortunately, the same does not apply to IT; the original miniseries adaptation was a fantastic hit among King fans and fans of horror in general, and the same can be said for its 2017 remake. That particular movie received its Chapter Two, which concluded the story of the demonic entity that assumes the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Or did it? While IT: Chapter Two wasn’t as successful as the first movie, it gave birth to a media franchise that focuses on the tragic events of Derry, Maine, and the shapeshifting malevolent entity that has been terrorizing its residents.
IT: Welcome to Derry is the newest entry in the media franchise. It’s a television/streaming series developed by Andy and Barbara Muschietti and serves as a prequel to the movies, diving further into a much darker and horrific history of Derry, including the story of the Black Spot tragedy. The series’ narrative is inspired by Mike Hanlon’s interludes woven throughout Stephen King’s IT novels, which are presented as entries in Mike’s journal and document Derry dark past and its connections to the malevolent entity known as IT.
Mike is the only member of the Losers Club who has stayed in Derry. He becomes the town’s librarian and spends his time investigating and documenting Derry’s dark past and how certain tragic events connect to the sightings and killings of IT. That’s why Mike’s interludes exist in the novel’s narrative, as they add more context to IT and its connection to Derry and its history. In the second interlude, adult Mike Hanlon pays a visit to his cancer-stricken father, Will Hanlon, in the hospital and hears the tale that Will kept secret from Mike for a very long time.
Namely, the narrative opens up with Will’s story from his days spent in the Air Force, when he and his friends opened a nightclub called the Black Spot. The club was mostly aimed at Black patrons, providing them with a safe place to enjoy and spend the night. However, the evils of men never sleep, and the club was eventually swarmed and burned down by the radicalized white supremacist group known as the Maine Legion of White Decency. Sadly, many of the patrons didn’t make it to safety and remained trapped inside the building.
One of the people that managed to escape was Dick Hallorann, the co-founder of the Black Spot. If the name sounds familiar, Dick Hallorann was the head chef at the Overlook Hotel in Colorado in Stephen King’s The Shining. Will Hanlon’s recounting of the event also mentions a giant bird that snatched a victim in its talons amidst the chaos caused by the fire. As if the appearance of the giant bird snatching people in the middle of the tragedy isn’t disturbing enough, the novel describes a giant bird that doesn’t hover.
Instead, the giant bird in Will’s story floated in the air, suspended by balloons attached to each of its wings. At this point, it becomes quite evident to the readers that the bird is just one of many shapes assumed by the trans-dimensional entity that lures and devours children in IT. And that’s not all; the story of the Black Spot is just one of many stories Mike uncovers as he tracks the shapeshifter’s decades- possibly centuries-long reign of terror in Derry.
Collectively, these interludes woven throughout the main narrative of the IT novels became the inspiration for the series. However, just as with movies, Andy Muschietti introduced several changes to the interludes so that they could better match his movies. Namely, the Losers Club first meets IT in 1958 in the novel before confronting it again in 1985 as adults. The original IT miniseries adheres to this timeline, with the novels’ interludes placing the Black Spot tragedy in the 1930s.
However, Andy Muschietti’s 2017 IT remake changed the time setting of King’s novels to 1989 and 2016. Precisely 27 years apart, these dates change the time setting for the Black Spot tragedy to 1962, 27 years before the events of the first remake film. Since the movies focus on the mainline narrative, a television/screening series is the perfect vehicle to explore the history of Derry and Pennywise.
This nine-episode series builds on King’s themes of friendship, loss, and fear as a weapon while weaving in Derry’s haunted past, every 27-year cycle of terror, and Pennywise’s dormant period, giving fans deeper insight into the entity’s horrific legacy. IT: Welcome to Derry is scheduled to premiere on HBO and stream on Max in 2025, with Andy Muschietti directing four out of nine episodes, including the premiere.