IT: WELCOME TO DERRY Season 2 Will Be a “Very Bloody” Gangster Story Told Through the Eyes of Pennywise
Pennywise is heading back to the 1930s, and it sounds like the murderous clown is about to get mixed up in some serious gangster violence.
Brad Caleb Kane, showrunner of HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry, is teasing a very different second season that will take the horror series into Depression-era Derry, where organized crime and Stephen King’s supernatural nightmare are about to collide.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Kane offered some really cool insight for what the creative team has planned.
"We’re making something very exciting for season 2 that I can’t talk too much about, but it’s got a different palette. It’s the Depression, it’s 1935. Beyond that, I can’t talk about it, but you can imagine a Warner Bros. gangster picture through the lens of Pennywise and Stephen King. That’s kind of what we’re doing."
A 1930s gangster movie with Pennywise lurking around the violence is going to be an awesome story for the series, especially considering the disturbing piece of Derry history that season 2 will explore.
The first season took place in the 1960s, 27 years before Andy Muschietti's IT movie, and followed a group of kids caught up in Pennywise's terrifying return after a young boy disappeared. That story eventually led to the devastating fire at The Black Spot.
Season 2 will jump back another 27 years to 1935 and focus on the Bradley Gang Massacre, a particularly nasty event from King's original 1986 novel.
The Bradley Gang was a group of criminals who robbed banks and stores around Derry before their activities ended in a deadly shootout in the middle of town. Pennywise was present during the massacre, just as he was during the fire at The Black Spot, feeding on the fear and suffering surrounding these horrific events.
That gives Kane and his writers plenty to work with as they explore another of Derry's darkest chapters. Kane, who recently released his Friday the 13th prequel series Crystal Lake, is taking over as sole showrunner for the second season.
He previously shared showrunning duties with Jason Fuchs on season 1, which was created by Andy and Barbara Muschietti. The writers are already making progress, and Kane promises things are going to get particularly gruesome.
"We have multiple scripts, we’ve broken more than half the story for season 2, and we’re edging into pre-production... It’s very exciting. It’s very, very bloody, and it’s very different from season 1."
While the creative team is "deep into the writers' room," the new season is still in the early stages of development. HBO hasn't released an official synopsis or announced the cast, although Bill Skarsgård is expected to return as Pennywise.
Muschietti has also confirmed that younger versions of characters from the first season will appear. Since the story takes place nearly three decades earlier, those roles will require younger actors.
I love that the series is taking the opportunity to explore Pennywise's influence during an entirely different period in Derry's history. The show can lean into the crime and violence of the 1930s while keeping King's terrifying mythology at the center of it all.
The idea of a classic Warner Bros. gangster picture filtered through Pennywise's twisted world is a fun approach to the material.
There's no release date for IT: Welcome to Derry season 2 yet, but Derry's next trip into its ugly past sounds like it's going to be one hell of a bloody and scary ride.