Fans Are Convinced It: Welcome to Derry Is The Shining Prequel—Here’s Why

File this under 'King-verse crossovers I did not have on my 2025 bingo card': people are convinced HBO's 'It: Welcome to Derry' is secretly teeing up 'The Shining.' The show drops October 26, 2025, it jumps back to 1962 Derry, and the first trailer has fans pausing and zooming like it is the Zapruder film. There is a reason for the buzz, and it is not subtle.

So... is this a 'Shining' prequel?

Short answer: nobody making the show has confirmed that. Long answer: the evidence is strong enough that I get why people are planting their flags.

• Timeline check: the series is set decades before the 'It' movies, which gives the writers room to dig into Derry's history and weave in threads from other Stephen King stories.
• The big tell: a young Dick Hallorann shows up. Yes, that Dick Hallorann — the one from 'The Shining' and 'Doctor Sleep.'
• His role matters: in this version, Hallorann is running the Black Spot, a bar connected to Black soldiers from a nearby airbase — a location with major lore baggage in King's world.
• The Shine is in play: Hallorann's telepathy (aka 'the Shine') is not just a cameo trait; between interviews and the trailer, it looks like his abilities are baked into the plot.

Why Hallorann changes the conversation

Connecting Hallorann to Derry in 1962 does more than name-check another King character. It implies the same supernatural current fueling the Overlook Hotel is rippling through Derry while Pennywise is doing Pennywise things. That is a pretty big swing, and if the show follows through, it could lock 'Welcome to Derry' into the larger King ecosystem in a way the films only flirted with.

Chris Chalk on playing young Hallorann

Chris Chalk is stepping in as Hallorann, and he laid out the character math in a way only a franchise veteran can appreciate:

'The beauty of Dick Hallorann is he is not gonna die in this [show] because he's got to get to the Overlook. We already know who he is as an older man, where the shine is more controlled. No one knows this dude at this reference point. I got to create what I thought he was based on what was written.'

That tells you a few things. One, Hallorann's arc here is a beginning, not an end. Two, the show is treating his Shine like a character in its own right. And three, the Black Spot era is not just backstory — it is a narrative engine.

Where the trailer leaves us

HBO's first look does not stamp 'Shining prequel' in big red letters, but between 1962 Derry, the Black Spot, and Hallorann's growing powers, the connective tissue is right there. Even if the creatives duck the label, the show seems very comfortable threading these worlds together.

Bottom line: 'It: Welcome to Derry' might not officially be a 'Shining' prequel, but it is playing in that sandbox — and it is bringing one of its most important lifeguards with it.