News It: Welcome to Derry What To Know Before You Watch IT: Welcome to Derry Release date, cast, and roughly how scared you should be. By Vanessa Armstrong | Published on October 23, 2025 Credit: Brooke Palmer/HBO Comment 0 Share New Share Credit: Brooke Palmer/HBO HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry is a terrifying ride, with a doozy of a first episode that lets viewers know that the series won’t pull any punches as it explores the horror that the entity known as Pennywise and/or IT inflicts on those who live in a particular part of Maine. If you’re confused about how the show fits into the Stephen King universe overall or even with the recent movies, however, we’ve got you. Read on for all the spoiler-free details you need to know before watching Welcome to Derry. When is IT: Welcome to Derry coming out? IT: Welcome to Derry premieres on Sunday, October 26, 2025, at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. New episodes of the eight-episode season will debut weekly until the finale on Sunday, December 14, 2025. Is Welcome to Derry based on the movies or the book? Welcome to Derry is loosely based on the “Interludes” from Stephen King’s 1986 book. For those who haven’t read the more-than-1,000-page novel, the Interludes take place at different times in the place where the town of Derry is ultimately founded. Welcome to Derry also takes place in the universe established in 2017’s IT and 2019’s IT: Chapter 2. That means that the timeline differs from the book, since those movies moved up the timeline to 2016. The main Interlude that the first season of Welcome to Derry focuses on is the one with The Black Spot, which in the book takes place in the 1930s. In the series, however, it’s set in 1962. Co-creator Andy Muschietti also shared this in a panel discussion that Reactor attended: “I realized that there’s so much story starting with the Interludes of the book. If you’re going to go to the past, why don’t we make a bigger journey? And soon enough, I found myself visualizing an invisible, hidden story within that incomplete puzzle that Stephen King created… There is a reason why we’re saying this story backwards that you don’t know yet. I can’t tell you. But, it just felt exciting. Okay, but how much can an IT prequel really surprise us? We know where this is all going, right? The universe Stephen King created behind IT is vast! And without getting into spoilers, I’d bet a nickel that 99% of people who watch the premiere episode will walk away surprised (among other emotions). Is Bill Skarsgård Back as Pennywise? Yes, and Skarsgård was involved in the idea of the prequel since he and Andy Muschietti (director of the movies and co-creator of Welcome to Derry) were working on IT: Chapter 2. “We were sort of high on the experience and speculating about making the origin story of IT the clown of Pennywise. How did It become the clown? And we thought that there was something there, a great story,” Muschietti shared. IT’s malevolent doings, however, are all over the series. The first season also touches on the fact that IT has been in Derry for a long, long time. We see some of that play out in season one (though apparently we’ll dig into it more in potential second and third seasons). One thing is certain, however: IT has a big impact on the ensemble cast, which includes Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso How scary is Welcome to Derry compared to the movies and book? It’s very scary! Prepare to be scared Is Welcome To Derry a Stephen King multiverse show like Castle Rock? There are nods to other characters and places in Stephen King’s works. Shawshank prison, for example, is mentioned in passing, and a young Dick Hallorann, who is an older man in The Shining, is a character in the series played by Chris Chalk. Making those connections to the wider King universe isn’t a big part of the first season of Welcome to Derry, however, though potential future seasons of Welcome to Derry may have more. What has Stephen King said about Welcome to Derry? Does it have his blessing? In an interview with ScreenRant, co-creator Jason Fuchs said King was “very involved” in the development of Welcome to Derry. “He would have to read and approve virtually everything, but [the writers] didn’t know what his reaction was to the finished product until he put out a message on Threads that said he loved the show and episode one was terrifying.” How many red balloons are there? Over/Under 99? There’s at least one, according to the latest trailer! [end-mark] The post What To Know Before You Watch <i>IT: Welcome to Derry</i> appeared first on Reactor.