Andy and Barbara Muschietti have never been interested in playing it safe. After IT and IT Chapter Two, the brother-and-sister duo weren’t ready to leave Derry, Maine — Stephen King’s cursed playground from the acclaimed novel, IT — and thankfully, they didn’t. IT: Welcome to Derry, a prequel series the pair developed with Jason Fuchs, transports viewers to 1962 and follows Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), a U.S. Air Force Major, his wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and their son, Will (Blake Cameron James), as they settle into their new life in Derry. However, they quickly realize that this small town is anything but innocent, as a young boy goes missing and the evil clown Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) returns to wreak havoc on everyone — especially children.

The Muschiettis didn’t just tell another story about the world-eating entity, but they dove deep into territory that even the Master of Horror himself hadn’t explored in his 1,138-page book. In this eight-episode series, the siblings reveal the true origins of Pennywise the Clown in the form of the down-on-his-luck circus performer Bob Gray — the subject of much speculation and theories by fans of the 1986 novel. IT: Welcome to Derry’s finale is nothing short of sheer spectacle, as it takes several twisty character arcs and storylines to the finish line, as well as connects back to the films with cameos from Sophia Lillis and Joan Gregson, who played Beverly Marsh and Mrs. Kersh, respectively, in IT Chapter Two. The Muschiettis poured their heart and soul into the horror series for years, and the results speak for themselves. COLLIDER: I love the series. It scared the hell out of me. And you two are no strangers to the horror genre. So I’m curious, what really scares you? BARBARA MUSCHIETTI: For me, it’s always one word, which is “unpredictability.” What gets me is always something that I’m not expecting, and in order to have an action be unpredictable, you have to distract the audience with something else. It’s quite a craft, right? And when they manage to do it well, I’m the happiest kid in the block because I love it. I love it when somebody scares me, which is different from what disgusts me. Being disgusted, eh. But when I have a good scare, it’s magic to me. ANDY MUSCHIETTI: You know, I’ve never done found footage in my life, but it’s one of the formats that really gets me when it’s well done. And I think I had great, like very good experiences or horrible experiences in the best way with certain found footage movies, and I think it’s a genre that is sort of coming back in a way, if it ever left. I want to see Man Finds Tape. Anything that is fresh and tries to basically create or present something that is not derivative or formulaic — it’s always welcome.
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’s Finale Had the Challenge of Tying Up Several Intricate Storylines

“I wanted to visually end up with a set piece that was haunting, mystifying, and spectacular.”

Matilda Lawler, Clara Stack, Blake Cameron James and Amanda Christine hold a dagger in IT: Welcome to DerryImage via HBO

What was the biggest challenge going into the finale, both from a storytelling perspective and logistical filmmaking? ANDY MUSCHIETTI: Challenges. The challenges. (Laughs) BARBARA MUSCHIETTI: My challenge, I’ll tell you what my challenge is. My challenge as a producer and big sister of this gentleman… for Andy, a project is never over, and it’s always an evolution, which is great because that’s how we get stuff to be so good, if I may say so myself. But at the same time, for a poor producer who’s trying to put order and numbers and a plan, it’s a lot. My brother and I have been together for 52 years. I know that when the end is approaching — the last episode — his brain goes into overdrive of creativity. He doesn’t want to let go. And I get pummeled with new ideas and possibilities as I’m trying to survive the four years that it’s taken me to do the show. It’s the last sprint that’s always the hardest to get done because we have what we planned, triples or quadruples, because Andy’s making it better. But at the same time, there’s a lot to be done. ANDY MUSCHIETTI: For me, the challenges were basically finding a conclusion for all the arcs, for all the emotional journeys in such a small canvas, which is the final episode. It is a long episode, not too long. I think one hour and ten minutes or something. But I think it was obviously teamwork because, from the writing to the performances to the editing, I think we managed to pull it off. It’s challenging because it’s like, okay, how do we resolve so many emotional arcs of so many characters? Many of them are shared, but also, individually, we do it for each and every character. And from a technical perspective, another challenge was making an ending that was worth… the bar kind of got higher and higher over the episodes, probably being Episode 7 with “The Black Spot,” pretty intense. So I wanted to visually end up with a set piece that was haunting, mystifying, and spectacular, also, and that required a lot of effort for us to show that. Of course, we have resources, but they’re not unlimited. So we had to do a lot of strategy and hard work, a lot of thinking, and a lot of sacrifices to do what we wanted.
Pennywise’s Origin Story as Bob Gray Had a Specific Weirdness, Thanks to Bill Skarsgård’s Ideas

“We decided to make a very layered, three-dimensional character in a very, very small running time.”

The last episodes, especially, were just such a spectacle. It was really, really well done. I want to talk about the man of the hour, Bob Gray. In the book, there are over 1,000 pages you have to work with. But he’s very ambiguous – kind of just mentioned, a lot of fans have debated if Bob and Mrs. Kersh are inventions of IT. I know you worked with Stephen King, but you kind of made the definitive origin story for Pennywise. Was he giving you his blessing with everything? Did he have any say about where he wanted Pennywise to go? ANDY MUSCHIETTI: No, of course. Stephen King creates a lot of enigmas in the book. And that’s part of why the book is so magnetic. The story is so magnetic because it’s like a puzzle without solving many, many things. The character of Bob Gray is so cryptic. And it’s like, “What the — who the fuck is Bob Gray?” We don’t know anything about it. We didn’t ask Stephen King specifically who Bob Gray was, because it’s true also that Stephen doesn’t fully know; he admits that he doesn’t fully know, or he doesn’t want to go back to whatever was in his mind back in the day. Not that he was rejecting that kind of questioning, but we really wanted to explore and have the freedom to explore who that character was. And it all started with conversations with Bill Skarsgård in 2018, when we were finishing It Chapter Two, and then we continued to the mini-room with the writers. But basically, what we wanted to create was a character that was not a psychopath, that was not a person that was like… some people say that he’s some kind of serial killer or something. It’s not. The evil force that Pennywise is comes only from IT. We opted for doing the thing, which is the clown. The entity shapeshifted into this clown because the clown is the perfect bait to attract children. And who is Bob Gray? Then that’s another question. We decided to make a very layered, three-dimensional character in a very, very small running time. He only has two scenes. But in those two scenes, we realized that he’s a guy who fell from grace. We learned that he was a big circus clown in a big circus, and that his wife died, and then he sort of spiraled down into a hole of alcoholism and depression. And he got a new job in a small traveling circus. That’s sort of the backstory. There are crumbs of that in the two scenes. If you’re paying attention, you understand the backstory pretty good. But he’s still a guy who has hope. The only thing that gives him hope is his daughter, Ingrid, so he tries to do the right thing. Now, he’s a guy who is moody and grumpy and an alcoholic, but he still wants to do the right thing. And it’s funny, because in that scene where IT comes in the shape of the kid, of this urchin boy, he’s like, “Scram!” (Laughs) “Help me find my parents. I can’t find my parents.” “Me neither! They’re dead.” That comes really from Bill, because when we decided to go for a character that was kind of a benign character, he’s like, “yeah, but I want to give it an extra layer, because it’s not interesting.” The fine-tuning of Bob Gray that you see in Welcome to Derry was a lot of Bill Skarsgård doing those little details and behaviors. Let’s talk about Leroy. I feel like he had a huge episode. The finale blends together his rage, his vulnerability in looking for his son. What was it like to bring the arcs together of him finding Will, and then his relationship with Shaw? ANDY MUSCHIETTI: Leroy is a guy that believes in the system. He says it quite clearly that there’s nothing wrong with this country that can’t be fixed by the things that are right in this country. Charlotte has a very different perspective. She doesn’t believe in the system, and she thinks that the system is corrupted and racist and whatnot. It’s a guy who is in his beliefs; he basically immerses himself in the job. He owes obedience to his general. Over the course of the revelations, he realizes… he has to go through all this shit to realize that, in fact, he agrees with Charlotte. The system that he always believed in is a system that allows the military to basically use fear as a weapon. And that’s when he wakes up, basically. In his relationship with Will, through this ordeal that he goes through with his son, they find common ground. It’s a father and a son who don’t understand each other. We have a kid who wants to please his dad, but he doesn’t know how to because his nature doesn’t allow him, or he believes that his dad wouldn’t approve of him because he’s a nerd, and he’s not a “strong man” like his dad. That’s the transformation and the finding of common ground between the two. With Shaw, it’s a little easier. It’s the disillusionment of Shaw. It’s an arc that is a little more simple, I think. It takes Leroy a lot to understand. Dick, at one point, says, “Yeah, stop licking that fucking boot.” And that doesn’t go over his head. I think it’s a combination, it’s an accumulation of things. Charlotte proves to Leroy something that Leroy is resistant to believe, and then he’s like, yeah, you’re right. He says it to Rose [Kimberly Guerrero], he says, “I don’t believe it, I don’t believe in it anymore.”
‘IT: Welcome to Derry’s Finale Cameo Directly Connects to the IT Movies

“I realized that there was something missing, which is the visual connection with the movies.”

Sophia Lillis’ Beverly Marsh looked scared in ITImage via HBO

I want to talk about that cameo at the end. Very exciting, especially for people who love the movies. Was it always going to be Sophia Lillis’ Beverly Marsh coming back, or did you jump around with a bunch of different actors for the cameo? ANDY MUSCHIETTI: No. I’m going to try to make it short, because it’s a long story. (Laughs.) But long story short, we were doing reshoots or additional shooting. We had edits, assemblies of the whole series. And we went back to Canada to pick up some scenes. In that process, I realized that there was something missing, which is the visual connection with the movies. And the show had a lot of references and cross-references and characters that are ancestors of characters, so all of that’s great, but there was that thing that was missing, which is the link in the chain between the show and the movie. And so, in my mind, I had an epilogue that was comprised of four little scenes with the characters that survived the series in relationship with the kids, and involved calling back the kids from IT that are all in their 20s now. (Laughs) So it would be weird. But we didn’t actually have the resources, and also it wasn’t very smart to tell one idea with so many scenes. I also have the problem that my endings and movies are long; if you see IT Chapter Two, you can tell that. So I picked one, which was the scene with Sophia with Beverly. And it was a strong connection, given that in IT Chapter Two, you have Jessica Chastain going to her dad’s home and finding a new character, Miss Gersh. Who is that woman? Well, that woman is someone she knew when she was a kid, but she doesn’t remember.
The Muschiettis Would Love To Make an ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’ Spin-Off About Dick Hallorann

“We love Chris Chalk.”

Chris Chalk standing and looking ahead as Dick Hallorrann in IT: Welcome to DerryImage via HBO

Dick Hallorann’s ending really sets up what I hope is a spin-off. Would you be open to doing a spin-off of just his character? ANDY MUSCHIETTI: Yeah. It sounds very exciting. We love Chris Chalk; he is an incredible person and an incredible actor. So that would be a thrill. Barbara, can tell you the story of Sophia and how we found her? BARBARA MUSCHIETTI: It all was born from knowing that Joan [Gregson] was still acting. ANDY MUSCHIETTI: Joan was 85 years old when we shot IT Chapter Two in 2018. So we didn’t know that she was still acting. BARBARA MUSCHIETTI: We found out through our camera person, Angelo Colavecchia, who’s just amazing. And he’s like, “I just worked with Joan. She’s great.” And so we’re like, oh, so we need to bring her back! And Andy came up with all of this story as we were doing these tiny little pickups in Toronto, tiny, in April. He wanted to shoot this scene, and we had no money. We sat down with the budget, and we basically said, “Okay, what VFX can you cut so we can shoot this scene?” He found the sacrificial shots. (Laughs) And which, by the way, he ended up getting them at the very end in a crazy twist of fate. But at that time, he decided that he could live without them. And he couldn’t live without that end scene. I called Sophia, who is just unbelievable. She’s amazing. We would do anything with her. But I called her, and I said, “Would you do this cameo for us? It’s really important because it connects us to the movies, and we want everybody to go see the movies after they finish the show.” And she said, “Tell me when and I’m on a plane.” She lives in New York. She jumped on the plane and came to Toronto, and did this amazing scene with Joan. And it was so special because Joan passed away two months after doing it. And she had a great time, and we had a great time. It was just meant to be. I’m very, very glad we got to do it. Even when we’re exhausted, and we think, “Oh my God, I don’t know how I’m going to do this scene,” as in producing it and Andy directing it. We managed to do it with all our friends helping us. ANDY MUSCHIETTI: Also, that scene creates a super weird epilogue, but that’s the connection with a character that we all love. It also sort of resignifies the character of Beverly. When you see the movies later, if you see IT Chapter One, you understand her ordeal better and her trauma, which is that she actually saw her mom hanging. You understand because it’s said in IT Chapter Two, she has that scene with her dad, and the dad blames her for what her mom did, which is commit suicide. But seeing it is different. Now, going back to the movies, you know something else that you didn’t know. And it’s very special. All eight episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry are available on HBO Max.

Release Date

October 26, 2025

Network

HBO

Franchise(s)

IT