What Year Is ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Set In? Creator Explains the Prequel’s Full Timeline

Stephen King’s new adaptation for the author’s scariest novel has arrived just in time for the spooky season, and it’s about to reveal much more about Pennywise than you ever knew.

Based on King’s novel “It”, HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry serves as a prequel series to both the original book and creator Andy Muschietti’s previous adaptations It and It Chapter Two starring Bill Skarsgard.

It: Welcome to Derry is now set to expand the story of Pennywise who didn’t pay a visit to Derry just once — the show, now confirmed to have three seasons in total, will explore the evil clown’s earlier attempt to haunt the town’s children, as well as everything that happened very much before the movies’ events.

What Year Is ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Set In & Is It Different From Andy Muschietti’s ‘It’?

According to Muschietti’s idea to explore Pennywise’s three “returns” to Derry, the show’s first season covers the events happening in 1962, the year that marks the first time when the clown was seen in the town’s surroundings.

The movies, however, focus on a different era and have their plot unfolding in 1989, 27 years after Pennywise’s first appearance in Derry.

As Muschietti highlighted throughout several interviews, he and the show’s co-creator Barbara Muschietti have no plans to cover the same events in It: Welcome to Derry as in It and It Chapter Two — instead, the story will go much farther into the past, witnessing the first several times that Pennywise “returned” to Derry and delving into the monster’s origins.

“Our big story arc involves three seasons, mainly based on the three critical cycles of Pennywise, which are 1962, 1935 and 1908”, Andy Muschietti recently said in a new interview with Variety ahead of the show’s premiere on HBO Max on Sunday.

When Will Pennywise Appear in ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ Season 1?

Even though Bill Skarsgard’s infamous character is the figure behind all the gory things that happened in It: Welcome to Derry’s episode 1, he — or rather him in the most recognisable form — might be kept for further episodes just not to please the audiences that quickly.

Better to say, Pennywise isn’t yet there in his iconic clown look, but he’s still present in the first episode — in the form of that demon baby flying around in the opening scene and later possibly killing Matty, the boy whose sudden disappearance shakes the entire town.

According to It: Welcome to Derry’s co-creator Andy Muschietti, the decision to introduce a demonic newborn came from the team’s desire to blend traditional horror with something created thanks to modern technologies.

“We added some additional blood and guts to the scene, but the baby coming out is all Sean. It was real lighting, viscous goo and goop and all of that stuff. And it looks great, kind of an homage to old school horror and traditional techniques, with the benefits of some new technology”, the showrunner revealed in another interview with Variety.

It: Welcome to Derry’s season 1 episode 2 is set to arrive on HBO Max on October 31.