It: Welcome to Derry Scares Up 5.7 Million, But Falls Well Short of HBO’s Biggest Hit
Pennywise returns with bite as IT: Welcome to Derry scares up 5.7 million viewers in its first three days and opens at 78% on Rotten Tomatoes, even as some numbers still lag.
HBO and Max just opened the spooky season early: the IT prequel series, IT: Welcome to Derry, landed with big numbers and a warm critical hug. Not record-shattering, but definitely strong enough to make Pennywise smile with too many teeth.
The quick snapshot
Created by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs, Welcome to Derry pulled in 5.7 million viewers in its first three days (via The Hollywood Reporter) and started with a solid 78% on Rotten Tomatoes. That is a healthy launch for a horror prequel on a Sunday night.
How it stacks up against HBO heavyweights
Let’s talk context, because the comparison everyone makes is to the network’s biggest debuts. There are two towering champs that probably are not moving off the podium anytime soon:
- House of the Dragon - 9.98 million (first day)
- The Last of Us - 4.7 million (first day)
- IT: Welcome to Derry - 5.7 million (first three days)
Yes, that is not an apples-to-apples match-up. Derry is a three-day number versus their single-day tallies, which is a pretty key footnote. Still, even with the measuring windows being different, Derry came out of the gate in good shape for a genre prequel.
Worth noting: the Sunday night handoff
The premiere also outpaced HBO’s previous Sunday-night occupant, a series called Task, which opened to 3 million viewers and finished its season at 4 million. If you are wondering what Task is, you are not alone, but the point stands: Derry gave the slot a bump.
What the show is actually doing
This prequel digs into the historical threads from Stephen King’s novel that the movies never fully used. Season 1 is set in 1962, which lets the series play with an era that is ripe for dread and paranoia even before a murderous clown shows up.
"So in '89, he comes out, he is the clown. 27 years prior, you come back and you are in 1962, and you can do a story about America in 1962, which, obviously, an entity that uses fear and terror to divide and terrify, you can imagine what is going on in America in 1962."
That is how the team behind the show has been framing the approach, and it tracks with the book’s cycle-of-evil structure.
Season 2? Here is the plan vs. the reality
Andy Muschietti originally mapped this as a three-season story, each one covering a different era of Pennywise-scale mayhem from the novel’s lore. If they get the runway:
- Season 2 would jump to 1935
- Season 3 would reach back to 1908
But none of that is officially greenlit yet. Co-showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane have said they are ready to keep going if the audience is there. Translation: if these numbers hold or grow, renewal feels likely.
Bottom line
Welcome to Derry did not topple HBO’s two biggest modern juggernauts out of the gate, but it did exactly what a prequel needs to do: show up strong, get decent reviews, and prove there is more story to mine. If the weekly episodes do not face-plant, expect renewal chatter to get loud.
IT: Welcome to Derry is streaming on HBO Max (USA).