‘IT: Welcome To Derry’ explores beliefs, fears and ideas from childhood

“I think at this point Stephen King had enough confidence in us or the capabilities we could provide that he said, ‘Just go for it.’”

This is Andy Muschietti, talking about King’s thoughts on the new series IT: Welcome to Derry.

Andy co-developed the series with his sister Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, all of whom were involved in the series It movies.

Set in the 1960s, the series chronicles the time leading up to the events of the first films in the franchise. It (2017) and It Chapter Two (2019).

Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar and Stephen Rider star in the series, along with Clara Slack, Amanda Christine, Mikkal Karim-Fidler and Bill Skarsgard (who also serves as executive producer) reprising his role as Pennywise from the films.

At a press event, Andy says that in this version: “[It’s] different because we took more detours [from] the books.”

About King’s involvement, Andy says, “Of course he always reads and blesses every step of the way, but he was very open to this hidden story that I was talking about. And there’s a lot of creation involved that isn’t in the book.”

Barbara adds that King welcomed the additions and revisions, saying, “He welcomes it and he gets excited about it. He writes to us about it all the time, which is just the best. We would find an email from Stephen loving a blood explosion or whatever we do.”

As for trying to emulate King’s style, Andy notes, “He mixes notes, and he basically puts a scoop of everything he likes into the same world, because that’s what life is also made of – it’s got comedy, it’s got drama, it’s got gruesome events, so we’re doing the same thing.”

He says the creative team started “speculating about creating the origin story of Pennywise’s clown.”

“We had a feeling there was something there,” Andy explains. “The book is very cryptic. Stephen King deliberately makes it very mysterious, as if it is shrouded in an enigmatic feeling. But… [that’s]That’s exactly what attracts us to it. And I realized that if you go into the past, why don’t we take a bigger journey? I soon found myself visualizing an invisible, hidden story within the incomplete puzzle Stephen created.

Andy deciphers the theme of the series and reveals: “Children are creatures [who are] better able to have faith and imagination and believe in things that don’t exist. That is their strength, and that is actually their misfortune, because for someone who is such a predator, who hunts on fear, on faith, that is the big conclusion.”

He admits this, he lifted this concept from the source material. “It only appears once in the book, but I’ve read it a thousand times.”

He says it is because of this belief that “the children see it and are the prominent victims of this, because adults don’t believe in things that don’t exist. So it’s a lingering question: Is it real, or is it something we create?”

Caulk, offering a thought about the being at the center of the story, says, “I don’t think we’ve necessarily had the conversations about what ‘It’ is, but we have our own interpretations. I also see it as our incessant addiction to our own fears. We could develop our own personal way of dealing with fear, but instead what we do is hide and we don’t grow and we don’t evolve, and ‘It’ takes advantage of that by to say, ‘Hey, grow up, or we’re going to devour your world.’ So I see it as a lesson: if you never grow up, this thing will continually come back and eat you alive.

Andy adds: “There are different bloodlines and different arcs for different characters, but the dominant thing, one of the big themes in the book, is all the virtues that children have that just disappear when they [they] turns into an adult. The adults become like the others. The adults become a kind of enemy of everything that is beautiful about childhood. King knows this because he struggles to keep the child alive all the time.

Summarizing the series, Andy concludes: “It’s clear that the game is here, here [are]the new losers, let’s fall in love with them so we can make the journey, and the subversion is there to basically tell the audience, ‘nothing is safe.’

‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ premieres Sunday, October 26 on HBO and will be available to stream on HBO Max. New episodes of the season will be released weekly leading up to the season finale on Sunday, December 14^e.