HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry takes viewers to 1960s Maine, where a hateful town feeds on shared pain and kids face Pennywise’s terror. While children investigate and adults sense something sinister, the series leans harder than ever into Pennywise’s chilling shapeshifting—surpassing both the 1990 miniseries and the modern films directed and produced by Andy and Barbara Muschietti with which it shares canon.
Jason Fuchswho teamed with the Muschiettis on It: Chapter Two and now co-creates Welcome to Derrysays Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise won’t appear until later in the series. Initially, Skarsgård was apprehensive about stepping into the role again due to its dark undertones. “Because, obviously, for someone that takes his work and his art so seriously as him, it takes a toll to live in the head of those characters for a long time,” Andy Muschietti told Screen Rant. But once conversations about the virtues of this story rose, he decided to return to the role, which has become one of the biggest draws for the HBO show.
The Muschiettis compare Pennywise’s eventual reveal to the shark in Jawsemphasizing the importance of building anticipation. “It is a shapeshifting creature, and in the movies there’s only so much space to see those non-Pennywise manifestations,” Fuchs told EW. It’s no mystery that behind the clown makeup and array of teeth is a giant spider-like creature lurking beneath, but don’t think the series settles for arachnophobic scares.
The manifestations haunt the series from the very beginning, ensuring it never skimps on the horror. By leaning into the longer format, Welcome to Derry digs deeper into the lore of It than a film ever could. And while Pennywise himself doesn’t appear right away, he’s no last-episode twist — It’s presence looms over Derry from the start.
