Bill Skarsgård is back as Pennywise for the It prequel Welcome to Derry, and like the movies, the show will use him when the scary situation truly calls for it.
Talking to SFX Magazine, co-showrunner Andy Muschietti likened the clown’s appearances in the show to the shark in Jaws: “It’s very appropriate for a monster that is a shapeshifter to appear in several different shapes and manifestations before he shows up as a clown,” he said. “The idea is building tension around the apparition of a monster that we know already, and people are waiting – when is it going to appear?”
A simple idea, sure, but one Muschietti and his co-showrunner (and sister) Barbara say more than works for Welcome to Derry. The latter called the new creations cooked up for the show “pretty damn incredible” and “so much more” than what’s been seen in the trailers. Since every episode was made to “pack a punch,” the team strived to make these “new incarnations and fears” stand on their own while living up to the level of what was achieved in the two films.
“When [Pennywise] appears, it’s in a big way,” teased Andy Muschietti. He hopes the audience will find it “gratifying” when the cosmic entity does appear on screen, and we’ll see how that trick works when Welcome to Derry premieres October 26 on HBO.
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