IT: Welcome to Derry's first-look stills and new details confirm previously skipped events from Stephen King's novel will be included in the show

With only two episodes of The Penguin now left to go and Dune: Prophecy around the corner, expect Max to ramp up marketing on next year's biggest HBO shows. The Last of Us' second season is perhaps the most heavily anticipated, but don't forget about the upcoming IT prequel, Welcome to Derry, which has just had its first-look stills and details released.

We already knew the series would take place before the events of Andy Muschietti's two-part adaptation of Stephen King's novel, respecting that same continuity and with Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise returning to haunt an earlier generation of kids. Now, thanks to Entertainment Weekly, we're learning about the actual plot the series is going to follow.

"This is a book we love a lot, and we felt that there was still a lot of story to be covered... It’s so rich with characters and events, we thought we would do justice to the book and the fans by going back into this world. Specifically, we are telling the stories of the interludes, writings by Mike Hanlon based on his investigation that includes interviews he conducts with the older people in the town," Andy and his sister Barbara Muschietti explain. Indeed, King's phenomenal book is monster-sized, and I don't mean that as a cheap pun. Even if the 2017 and 2019 movies did a good-enough job adapting the central conflicts and story arcs, there was so much more left unexplored, and I find the idea of exploring those interludes (plus surely a bunch of original subplots) with a TV series quite inspired.

Since the IT movies shifted the timeline "a few decades later than the setting of King's book," Welcome to Derry plays out in 1962 (27 years before IT: Chapter One) instead of during the 1930s, the era when the infamous 'Black Spot' burned down. Readers might also remember other interludes that went even further back in the timeline, so it seems we'll be getting more flashbacks that gradually explain the root of Derry's evil.

"It’s a different part of American history with a new set of fears for children, as well as adults having in mind the cost of the Cold War. Our baseline is 1962, but we do a few jumps to the past... Every 27 years when It appears, the cycle is marked by two catastrophic events, one at the beginning and one in the end. We are using the Black Spot as an event in which many stories are built around," write the Muschietti duo. The first-look images focus on introducing the series' cast, with Jovan Adepo (Overlord) spearheading the ensemble and probably playing Will Hanlon, Mike's dad.

Alongside Adepo and Skarsgård, the large cast includes newcomers Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso. For now, further plot details are being kept under wraps, but we do know Andy Muschietti is directing four out of nine episodes of the show's first season. Right now, it's unclear if IT: Welcome to Derry has been written and shot with a second volume of episodes in mind. It's coming to Max at some point in 2025, but don't expect a more specific release date until we're deep into next year.