This: Welcome to Derry This is not the first time that the terrifying monster that haunts the small fictional town of Stephen King’s best-seller has appeared on the small screen. But during a New York Comic Con panel on Saturday, the cast and creative team behind HBO’s upcoming prequel series revealed how the series will take the horror classic to new places with expanded lore and more terror.
As part of Saturday’s panel, which featured clips from the upcoming series, This: Welcome to DerryDirector and executive producer Andy Muschietti, executive producer Barbara Muschietti and co-showrunners and executive producers Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane were joined on stage by actors Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider and Kimberly Guerrero.
Set in 1962, 27 years before the events of This is chapter one — Derry is once again subject to Pennywise’s reign of terror. According to Barbara, they pitched the concept for the series to King – “who came up with the idea and supported us” – and the Warner Bros. studio. towards the beginning of 2020.
“It’s an earlier cycle, which is very special to us because 1962 is closer to 1958 in a way,” Andy said, noting how the films moved the story’s timeline from the ’50s to the ’80s. the book, even if they are not the same characters. Some of them have ancestors and lineages and many of the things you discover might be some important connections. ”
The series will essentially explore the origins of Pennywise, using the book’s five interludes as a template. It’s “a hidden story, a story that’s not told forward but a story that’s told backwards and has a final conclusion – the events in which he becomes Pennywise,” Andy told the NYCC audience. “Of course, there’s more to tell. There’s a reason and a secret why we’re telling the story backwards. I can’t tell you right now. I guess you need to see the show.”
Read below to learn more about what the cast and creative team revealed about the upcoming series during Saturday’s NYCC panel.
Andy Muschietti says the prequel came from two places: Mike Hanlon and Bill Skarsgard’s interludes
For He Muschietti says the idea for a series set before the books came about when he and the film’s star, Bill Skarsgard, were “high on the experience” of filming This is chapter two.
“It all started as we were finishing,” he told the NYCC audience. “I started having these weird conversations with Bill Skarsgard because we had a wealth of experience doing It’s two. We started, somehow, speculating and fantasizing about a new story, a new movie, which was essentially the origin story of Pennywise. How did “It” become the clown? What role did the infamous and enigmatic Bob Gray play in the story? It was the conversations.
The two parted ways as new projects appeared on their calendars, but then the He The director took it back.
And after returning to the book, he realized how Pennywise’s origin story was only the beginning. “I’m kind of focusing on the interludes. That obviously has a function in the book. It spoke to me about a puzzle that was intentionally left unfinished in the book. Stephen King creates all these riddles and big question marks to create tension, but to me it felt like it was the template for a different story? The interludes for any of you who don’t know is Mike Hanlon, the loser who stays in city, played, moreover, by Isaïe Mustafa in [It Chapter Two] and Chosen One Jacobs in Chapter One.”
He continued: “He wrote all of this down. The interviews are documented. It’s the product of his investigation, which is a very fragmented document where he compiles all of people’s experiences in the past and he tries to understand fundamentally what it is about, but it’s not conclusive. We’re left with more questions than answers.”
The show will address what motivates the appearance of Pennywise
Fans know that Pennywise has been terrorizing children and families in this small Maine town for decades. But the answer to what brought “a being of pure light who could travel anywhere” and who would “decide to return again and again to Derry as a hunting ground” was a major question that Fuchs, the series’ co-showrunner, and the team, wanted to answer.
“We all had the same questions running through our heads as readers and viewers for many decades, certainly before we were able to join the franchise,” he said. “Surely there are more densely populated and more interesting places he could go. What brings him back? Why did he choose to revert to Pennywise form? He can take any manifestation he wants. What is it about this clown, Bob Gray, that makes him want to keep taking this form? It’s the process of solving these mysteries.”
Kane added that the show’s time period helped the show delve into the mind of the monster, “an interdimensional creature, who uses fear and hatred to divide. You’re talking about 1962 in America. Well, that’s a very rich and specific area for me, and that really interested me: the social implications of that, the marriage of that with horror and the themes of Mr. King’s book.”
‘It: Welcome to Derry’ will feature a cast that ‘will break your heart’
Addressing the performances, co-showrunner Kane told the crowd that “all these actors will break your heart. You will fall in love with these characters and all these actors, with the way they inhabited them. You will root for them. You will fear for them.”
Some of this casting includes characters from backgrounds that have historically not been represented in film lead roles. He universe. “It’s storytelling with a capital ‘s’ — the Stephen King universe — and it’s a family, but it’s a family that we’ve been excluded from,” said Guerrero, who plays Rose. “Indigenous history has been there, but we never got to join you at the table, and it was like we had stories too. So it was such a profound blessing and a lifetime’s work; I’ve spent my whole life working to bring our stories to the world and to help give space to our voices.”
Paige added of her character Charlotte: “In 1962, you smile, you cook, but you have thoughts that you suppress,” she told the crowd. “Charlotte was moving back to Shreveport, Louisiana. Charlotte was involved and has dreams, and she’s a whole person, just like everyone else here. And I think in 1962 about my grandmother, who was born in the late ’30s. What dreams died with people because of the year they were born, or where they were born, or the color of their skin? So Charlotte really enjoys being a wife and a mother, but she also has other interests and values to help people and contribute to society. I think what scares her is that she has the feeling, the real feeling, that something is just wrong and to ignore that and have something turn into something crazy is very scary.
