San Diego Comic-Con was hosting a new wave of concern this weekend when HBO pulled back the curtain on the second teaser for “It: Welcome to Derry”. The coming prequel whispers viewers away to 1962 – decades before the Losers’ Club – which traces the first ripples of fear that would grow into Pennywise’s reign. It is a tense, slow glimpse on the series’ October debut, and from the look of it, Derry’s darkest days are just starting.
The teaser opens with a misleading calm as a young couple, played by Taylour Paige and Jovan Adepo, arrive at the quiet city of Derry, Maine. From the beginning, their reception is anything but hot-promotions looking too close, smiles feel brittle and semi-shaped warnings hang in the air.
An unspoken tension goes below each interaction, just broken by the sudden silence as they pass. That concerns deepen when children begin to disappear and revive a gloomy pattern that the city knows too well but refuses to admit. When fear takes hold, fears on Derry’s streets and darkens its image-perfect surface.
Bill Skarsgård slides back into Pennywise’s skin, but the teaser saves his full disclosure for his last, shaking seconds – a deliberate restraint that makes his absence feel even more suffocating. His presence instead lurks in the details: a flicker in the street light, the claustrophobic press in a narrow alley and the sudden house on an overly quiet street. It is in these moments that Welcome to Derry The viewers remind that sometimes the most scary monsters are the ones you can’t see yet.
Developed for television of “It” and “It: Chapter Two” film creator Andy Muschietti, together with Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, expands the Stephen King’s original novel from 1986 and explores the evil cyclical nature embedded in Derry. The rollist also includes Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe and Rudy Mancuso.
Muschietti, which directs several sections, directs prequel to darker, more psychological territory – trade in hungry for a creeping feeling of inevitability. From the short look offered, Welcome to Derry Seems prepared to balance franchise’s signature terror with a richer exploration of the city’s haunted past. It leans to a long -standing fear of the spectacle and positions itself as both an origin story and a portrait of a society that is already under an invisible siege.
This: Welcome to Derry premieres in October at HBO, with streaming available at Max. For fans of King’s Source material and Muschietti’s Billion-Dollar-Box adjustments, the countdown to Pennywise’s return has officially begun to-even if he has not yet shown his full grin.
Derry’s streets can be still – but not so long. What do you think of Pennywise’s haunting return? Join the conversation at @celebmix and go to Celebmix for more stories and deep dives into the world of pop culture.
