‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Creators Reveal the Secret Behind That Gory Opening Twist

The fans of Stephen King’s scariest novel “It” are doing just fine this October now that HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry is finally out, despite having started with a major shocker for everyone.

Partially based on King’s novel, It: Welcome to Derry serves as a prequel series to co-creator Andy Muschietti’s previous King adaptations It and It Chapter Two, exploring Pennywise the Clown’s origins and some horrifying events that took place long before the original plot’s ones.

Even though the author’s longstanding fans thought they’d be ready for whatever happening in the first episode, they definitely weren’t ready for multiple deaths occurring in that shocking closing scene.

It: Welcome to Derry’s creators, however, had to come up with a tricky scheme to get HBO execs’ approval — they weren’t considering it to be that easy though.

‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Creators Came Up With an Original Episode 1 Pitch

Those who have already checked out the show’s first episode don’t need to reminded about three kids’ horrifying death in that movie theatre scene, and Andy Muschietti and co made sure HBO executives were impressed as well.

As one of It: Welcome to Derry’s showrunners Jason Fuchs revealed in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, the team prepared a second script where no one dies at the end of the episode, during the pitch pretending to have a bright idea of killing off several characters at the very beginning of the season.

“It was a product of that mini room experience where we decided, 'What if this happened?' So the network didn't know that was going to happen in the context of the pitch”, Fuchs said, adding that Andy Muschietti was the one to theatrically stand up and then pull the paper down, revealing the set of headshots of kids supposed to portray the main characters.

However, it all went pretty well and didn’t even meet the execs’ resistance, which came as a major shocker for the showrunners themselves.

“We went in [thinking] that will be the fight for us, we're gonna have to fight to keep on pushing the horror and push the jump scares. It was the opposite”, It: Welcome to Derry’s co-showrunner Barbara Muschietti added.

‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Episode Gets Labeled “Our Red Wedding” by Creators

After the initial pitch went into an unexpected direction and HBO’s bosses were too stunned to speak, It: Welcome to Derry’s creators knew the same trick would work out with the audiences too.

The effect was huge, with many fans praising the show’s starting point that turned out to be such a blast, so the series’ creators can’t be happier about their idea becoming successful.

“This is strategically a devastating event to set the audience into that sense of 'nothing is safe in this world.' We kind of trick the audience into thinking that these are the new Losers. Well, guess what? I guess they're all dead”, Andy Muschietti highlighted while Barbara Muschietti called the episode “our Red Wedding”.

It: Welcome to Derry’s episode 2 is coming to HBO Max on October 31.