Joey Paur
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HBO’s new IT prequel series Welcome To Derry has added two new members to the cast, which includes Madeleine Stowe (12 Monkeys, The Last of the Mohicans, Revenge) and Stephen Rider (Daredevil).
They join the previously cast Taylour Paige (Zola, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom), Jovan Adepo (Babylon, Watchmen), Chris Chalk (Perry Mason, All Dirt Roads Taste of Salt), and James Remar (Oppenheimer, Megalopolis). There’s still no word on who any of the actors are playing.
The official logline for the series states, “Set in the world of Stephen King’s ‘It’ universe, ‘Welcome to Derry’ is based on King’s ‘It’ novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films ‘It’ and ‘It Chapter Two.’”
The series is being developed by showrunners Jason Fuchs (It: Chapter II) and Brad Caleb Kane (Tokyo Vice), who will also executive produce the series.
When previously talking about the mythology of the story, Muschietti said, “There is a whole mythology to the book though…Mythology is something that always has opportunities to explore. It [aka Pennywise] has been on Earth for millions of years. He’s been in contact with humans for hundreds of years, every 27 years. So you can imagine the amount of material. It’s always exciting to think of eventually exploring this mythology. It’s very exciting. But, for now, there’s nothing on the table.”
While not confirmed, I think that the series will tell the story of The Black Spot, which was a major location in Derry that is talked about in the movies and Stephen King’s novel. The Black Spot was a nightclub started by Mike Hanlon’s dad, Will, and some of his friends. It was a place for black soldiers from the nearby Army base to go.
The Black Spot was burned to the ground by the Maine Legion of White Decency. One of the people inside was a young Dick Hallorann from The Shining, who worked in the club’s kitchen. Hallorann managed to get out alive and he eventually ended up working at The Overlook Hotel, where he ultimately met his demise.
There are some great prequel stories to tell with Pennywise because the shapeshifting creature has been in Derry, killing people for a very long time. “It arrived on Earth in a massive cataclysmic event similar to an asteroid impact, landing in a location in North America that would eventually become Derry, Maine. Once people settled over this location, It adopted its usual pattern of a 27-30 year hibernation, waking to kill and eat. Each awakening and return to hibernation is sometimes marked by a violent act, such as a mass murder or weather event. In the period between, a series of child murders occurring in Derry are never solved. It is outwardly explained that a series of murders, no matter how gruesome, don’t get reported if they happen in the small town. However, the real reason is that the influence of It prevents anyone from investigating too deeply.”
Here’s the timeline for It, which features several stories that a prequel could explore:
1715 – 1716: IT painfully awakes.
1740 – 1743: IT starts a three-year reign of terror that culminates in the disappearance of over three hundred settlers from Derry Township (similar to the lost Roanoke Colony, which was founded as a logging town.)
1769 – 1770: IT awakes again.
1851: IT awakes when a man named John Markson poisons his own family, then commits suicide by eating a white nightshade mushroom, causing an excruciating death.
1876 – 1879: IT awakes, then returns to hibernation after murdering a group of lumberjacks who were later found near the Kenduskeag Stream.
1904: IT awakes when a lumberjack named Claude Heroux murders a dozen men in a bar with just one axe. Heroux was promptly pursued by a mob of townsfolk and hung.
1906: IT returns to hibernation when the Kitchener Ironworks explode, killing 108 people, 88 of whom were children at an Easter egg hunt.
1929: IT awakes when a group of Derry citizens ambushes and kills the Bradley Gang, a group of robbers and murderers. The town, including its police chief, pretends it never happened. However, a witness later recounts the tale to Mike Hanlon, including seeing a clown in farmer’s attire participating in the slaying.
1930: IT returns to hibernation when the Maine Legion of White Decency, a Northern counterpart to the Ku Klux Klan, burns down “The Black Spot”, a nightclub known to cater to African-Americans at the nearby army base. IT appears at the location as a giant bird with balloons on its wings.
Source: Variety