IT: Welcome to Derry Stumbles, But It Finally Sets the Record Straight on Pennywise

If you walked out of the IT movies thinking Pennywise is just a killer clown who powers up on kids' fear, the new prequel series is here to nudge you toward the deeper, weirder truth. IT: Welcome to Derry spends its early hours gently (and sometimes not so gently) correcting the biggest misconception about Stephen King's cosmic nightmare.

So... what is Pennywise actually?

Director Andy Muschietti told THR that Pennywise is not a one-form monster playing dress-up, and the show makes that clear from the jump. In King's canon, the clown is a lure, not the limit. The thing we call It is a shapeshifter that can trigger hallucinations, appear as multiple entities at once, and manifest as entire swarms. Think less single boogeyman, more reality-bending predator that can show up as, say, a pack of piranhas instead of a lone creature.

Muschietti says he leaned back into the book's rules. That is why, right from the first episodes, the series reframes Pennywise's nature so viewers stop treating the clown visage as the whole story.

Playing keep-away with the clown

The show also toys with when and how the classic clown appears. Muschietti and producer Barbara Muschietti told THR they went minimal at first, letting Pennywise's presence haunt the frame without trotting out the greasepaint right away. You feel him before you see him.

"We did 'less is more' for half the show, but then we did 'more is more.' Delaying the appearance builds expectation. When and where the clown is going to show up was a game I wanted to play with the audience."

Barbara's take is very straightforward: the more you stare at Pennywise, the less scary he gets. He is a shapeshifter, so he should stay unpredictable. If the series made him a constant, the fear would flatten. The goal was to keep every sighting feeling dangerous and a little off-kilter, the way the movies did by using him sparingly.

Production hit a wall, and then the weather changed

Behind the scenes, Welcome to Derry ran into a brutal 8-month shutdown during the 2023 WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes. Per the Muschiettis' chat with SFX Magazine (via Deadline), cameras had already rolled on most of three episodes when everything stopped. When production finally restarted, a very nerdy TV-making problem kicked in: seasons had changed.

This was supposed to be a summer-set story. Suddenly, it wasn't summer anymore. That forced the team to rethink the finale and stage it in a different climate. On top of that, the kid actors had kept growing, voices were changing, and everyone's schedules got messy. Andy stressed he supports the writers and actors, but admitted the timing made life complicated for the folks in the middle of shooting. Even with all of that, they pushed through and finished the series the right way.

Welcome to Derry: quick stats

• Title: IT: Welcome to Derry
• Showrunners: Jason Fuchs, Brad Caleb Kane
• Number of episodes: 8
• Network: HBO
• IMDb: 7.7/10
• Rotten Tomatoes: 78%

Where to watch

IT: Welcome to Derry is streaming in the US on HBO Max.

Curious where you land on this one: do you like the series better than the films?