With anticipation building among horror enthusiasts for the next installment of Pennywise’s (Bill Skarsgård) terrifying saga, “It: Welcome to Derry” co-creator Andy Muschietti has revealed some updates on the progress of Season 2.
“We’re very excited, we’re in the writers’ room right now,” Muschietti shared with Variety.
The upcoming season is set in 1935, focusing on the Bradley Gang Massacre, an interlude from Stephen King’s “It” novel. In this storyline, a group of criminals takes refuge in Derry, engaging in robberies and murders while evading the FBI, creating chaos in the town. This period occurs 27 years before the first season of “It: Welcome to Derry,” which centers on a missing boy amid a Cold War military conspiracy.
Muschietti describes the era as one filled with “depression-era hustling,” where characters are desperately trying to survive. “There’s gonna be a lot of that depression-era hustling in the air in our characters. Everybody’s trying to get by and survive the circumstances. They are gonna do crazy things,” Muschietti says. “And of course, the social, cultural, horrible things that were happening in the era, too. We’re not going to skip those. [They are the] very center and the heart of our story.”
While fans are used to the franchise’s depiction of horror beneath suburban tranquility, Season 2 will present a starkly different aesthetic. “In this case, on the surface, Derry is a graveyard almost. It’s a carcass of something because people are depleted, poor, tired, jobless, homeless. The kids don’t have a suburban, comforting life. They’re in a very different situation. Some of them are orphans or runaways, and so the environment is pretty bleak. But there’s always the aspect of hope that is always there, burning, and it’s what keeps our new group going,” Muschietti explains.
By returning 27 years earlier, Muschietti and his team, including co-creators Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, have more creative freedom. The 1930s segment in King’s novel is brief, but the continuity of the family bloodline will link the timelines for the audience.
“There will always be the connection, there’s a family tree that appears,” Muschietti notes.
Muschietti began his exploration of Derry and Pennywise with the successful 2017 film “It” and its 2019 follow-up “It: Chapter Two.” He previously outlined to Variety his vision for a three-season arc of “Welcome to Derry,” focusing on the years 1962, 1935, and 1908, inspired by King’s interludes. “I realized there was a hidden story there, and that Stephen King was leaving crumbs that could guide us somewhere. It’s a story told backwards,” Muschietti explained.
Muschietti is also interested in adapting other stories by King.
“I cannot talk too much about it because some of them are [active] projects. One that I did touch that’s not a current project, but I would love to go back to at some point is ‘The Juant,’ which is a short story that blew my mind when I read it. I was 14 or something,” Muschietti says of the short story in King’s “Skeleton Crew” collection. “It just completely shattered me.”
“It: Welcome to Derry” Season 1 is currently available for streaming on HBO Max.
