‘It’ Prequel TV Series Will Star Bill Skarsgard as Pennywise

Bill Skarsgård will reprise his role as one of the scariest clowns of all time — an impressive achievement, given the overall terrifying nature of all clowns — in the upcoming It prequel TV show, Welcome to Derry, named for the town in Maine where the events of the movies took place.

Skarsgård previously played Pennywise the killer clown, in the two-part adaptation of Stephen King’s It, directed by Andy Muschietti. This new series, which Muschietti is working on, is set prior to the events of the two films, 2017’s It and 2019’s It Chapter Two. Combined, the two Its grossed more than $1.16 billion worldwide.

Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs developed the concept for Welcome to Derry. The series is expected to premiere on the Max streaming service.

Warner Bros.

When Max first announced the series, here was how they described it:

Set in the world of Stephen King’s “IT” universe, WELCOME TO DERRY (wt) is based on King’s “IT” novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films “IT” and “IT Chapter Two.”

Per Deadline, other members of the Derry cast include Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, and James Remar.

The It films had pretty stacked casts, Chapter Two especially, which starred Jessica Chastain, James McAvoy, and Bill Hader. So ensuring Skarsgård will return as Pennywise takes care of the fact that any It prequel will necessarily not include any of the beloved characters from the iconic Stephen King novel. But it can — and now it will — have Pennywise, who looks like a clown but is actually an ancient monster who wakes every 27 years to feed on children’s fear. (I am putting all these “it”s in on purpose, by the way.)

While Chastain, McAvoy, and Hader’s characters defeated Pennywise in It Chapter Two, there is seemingly no end to the stories you could tell about Pennywise going back every 27 years to its prior attacks on the residents of Derry. How about a Pennywise horror story set in Colonial Maine? That sounds kind of awesome, actually.