IT: WELCOME TO DERRY Teases Season 2’s Dark 1930s Setting and Says the Era’s “Horrible” Cultural Reality Is the “Heart of Our Story”

I recently rewatched her the first season of It: Welcome to Derry, and it’s so damn good, but the creative team is already hard at work on what’s next.

Co-creator Andy Muschietti recently shared an update on Season 2, revealing that the writers’ room is already rolling and teasing a much darker chapter in the history of Derry.

This time, the series is heading back to 1935, exploring another one of the infamous events pulled from Stephen King‘s It novel.

According to Muschietti, this season won’t just deliver supernatural horror. It’ll also dive into the harsh realities of the era that shaped the people living in Derry.

Speaking with Variety, Muschietti offered a quick update on where things currently stand:

“We’re very excited, we’re in the writers’ room right now,” Muschietti confirms to Variety.

Season 2 will center on the Bradley Gang Massacre, one of the historical interludes from King’s novel. In the book, the Bradley Gang arrives in Derry while on the run from the FBI, leaving a trail of robberies, murders, and violence throughout the town.

The story takes place 27 years before the events of Season 1, which followed the disappearance of a young boy against the backdrop of a Cold War military conspiracy.

Muschietti explained that the economic struggles of the Great Depression will play a major role in shaping the characters and their choices.

“There’s gonna be a lot of that depression-era hustling in the air in our characters. Everybody’s trying to get by and survive the circumstances. They are gonna do crazy things,” Muschietti says.

“And of course, the social, cultural, horrible things that were happening in the era, too. We’re not going to skip those. [They are the] very center and the heart of our story.”

That’s a big shift from what audiences have come to expect from the It franchise. While previous stories often contrasted Pennywise’s terror against the familiar comforts of suburban neighborhoods and carefree childhood adventures, this version of Derry will look and feel much different.

Muschietti described the town as a place that’s already been broken before Pennywise even enters the picture.

“In this case, on the surface, Derry is a graveyard almost. It’s a carcass of something because people are depleted, poor, tired, jobless, homeless.

“The kids don’t have a suburban, comforting life. They’re in a very different situation. Some of them are orphans or runaways, and so the environment is pretty bleak.

“But there’s always the aspect of hope that is always there, burning, and it’s what keeps our new group going.”

Even though the series continues jumping backward through Derry’s history, Muschietti says viewers won’t lose the connections between each timeline.

“There will always be the connection, there’s a family tree that appears,” Muschietti explains.

That approach has always been part of the long-term vision. After directing It and It: Chapter Two, Muschietti previously revealed that he envisioned Welcome to Derry as a three-season story moving backward through time, covering 1962, 1935, and eventually 1908.

Those time periods are inspired by King’s interludes, which briefly chronicled Derry’s disturbing past.

As Muschietti previously explained: “I realized there was a hidden story there, and that Stephen King was leaving crumbs that could guide us somewhere. It’s a story told backwards.”

Beyond Pennywise, Muschietti also has plenty of other Stephen King stories he’d like to bring to the screen.

While he couldn’t discuss projects currently in development, he did mention one adaptation that’s remained on his personal wish list for years.

“I cannot talk too much about it because some of them are [active] projects. One that I did touch that’s not a current project, but I would love to go back to at some point is ‘The Juant,’ which is a short story that blew my mind when I read it.

“I was 14 or something,” Muschietti says of the short story in King’s “Skeleton Crew” collection. “It just completely shattered me.”

Season 2 sounds like it’ll take It: Welcome to Derry into some incredibly dark territory, combining Pennywise’s supernatural nightmare with the very real struggles of Depression-era America.

It’s an interesting direction for the series, and it should give the creative team plenty of room to expand the mythology while exploring another terrifying chapter in Derry’s long and blood-soaked history.

In the meantime, It: Welcome to Derry Season 1 is currently streaming on HBO Max.

Source: Variety