It: Welcome to Derry revisits the world of Andy Muschietti’s It and It Chapter Two, acting as a prequel. Set for an October 26 release, the series will take place 27 years before the films, and Bill Skarsgard will reprise his role as Pennywise the Dancing Clown.
During ScreenRant’s It: Welcome to Derry interview with executive producers Andy and Barbara Muschietti, the latter addressed how the series approached bringing the villain into Welcome to Derry: “It’s been very important, from the first movie, to treat him as a very unpredictable character. In order to do that, you cannot have the audience get comfortable with him.”
“I’ve said this before, but he is our shark,” she continued. “You’ve got to bring him out with all his complexity in the right moments, otherwise It loses its power. I am absolutely convinced that he is still as terrifying as he is because of that dose-ification.”
The It director chimed in: “this is a slow burn; You’ll understand that the buildup and anticipation is intentional as we delay the appearance of the clown.” Muschietti added that the producers wanted to keep audiences guessing about Pennywise.
“He’s there, but he’s not,” the director concluded. “Or he’s not there, but he is.”
Showrunner Brad Caleb Kane also weighed in on Pennywise’s later introduction in the series, adding that “there are two movies that are full of Pennywise.” While the fans and writers “love him” and Skarsgard “is absolutely incredible,” the creatives behind Welcome to Derry wanted to explore more of It’s forms.
“The benefit of long-form storytelling is that we can spend a little bit more time on the other forms that Pennywise can take to scare the characters, and you can delve more deeply into the characters,” Kane said. “You can learn more about what makes them tick and what they actually do fear, based on the things that they’ve gone through.”
Per Kane, “if you really want to scare people, make it personal.” Those behind the show tried “to take these characters and make the things that Pennywise comes at them with very personal; very close to home.”
Speaking more directly about how Pennywise appears in the show, Kane explained:
You want to portion out Bill. We know the character of Pennywise is there early on. You hear his voice, you hear the laugh, you see the balloon. Sometimes you see the eyes open up in a place that you wouldn’t expect them to open up, so we know he’s coming.
You really just want to ratchet up that anticipation because when we do find him again, and we do use him, it’ll be spectacular. And it’ll be a lot more brutal than anything you’ve ever seen in the movie.
Pennywise holding a red balloon and making a face in It (2017)
Muschietti previously commented on Skarsgard’s reluctance to reprise the role, stating: “When we started talking about the series as something that was real and tangible, he had played a lot of very dark characters, and he was a little hesitant to go into it again. Because, obviously, for someone [who] takes his work and his art so seriously as him, it takes a toll to live in the heads of those characters for a long time.”
Though the actor was hesitant to reprise such a heavy role, the writers put a lot of care into when and how Pennywise is used in Welcome to Derry, which swayed him. Ultimately, Skarsgard’s reprisal of the role is a huge draw for fans, cementing it as a true It prequel, even if his appearances are limited early in the series.