Welcome to Derry” returns; All you need to know

If you are a fan of Stephen King’s book, “It”, or its adaptations, you can prepare yourself to return to Derry this Halloween; Where the nightmare it lurking again. This time, we go back to the starting point, where the horror begins. The series “It: Welcome to Derry” (It: Welcome to Derry) takes the story to years before the events of “It”; Exactly 27 years ago and if you are familiar with the book/movie, you know what this number means! This horror series peels back the layers of the cursed city and discovers how evil first took root beneath Darry’s smiling exterior.

The story of the book “It” by Stephen King, which was published in 1986, is about a group of kids (in the losers club) and their encounter with a scary creature that it They call it. This creature can take different forms, but mostly it shows itself like a scary clown (called Pennywise) to children and continues to survive by scaring them. In 2017, Andy Moschitti and his sister Barbara Moschitti brought the adaptation of Steven Koenig’s book to the cinema. This horror film was so well received that it surpassed “The Exorcist” to become the highest-grossing horror film of all time.

The phenomenal sales prompted the Mosquitoes to make a sequel to the first film. This sequel, titled “It Chapter: Two”, takes the story 27 years later; Where other losers club kids grew up, but it It has woken up again and causes terror and destruction. Three years later, the Musikettis began making prequels for their films; A prequel in the form of a series for HBO called Anne: Welcome to the Door, which tells the story years before the events of the first film.

If you want to know what Ann: Welcome to Derry is about, what time period the story takes place in, how it ties into the movies, and whether or not Bill Scourged is back as Pennywise, stay tuned.

What is the story of “Ann: Welcome to Door” series?

As we know from Stephen King’s long book, the creature known as Pennywise the Clown was found living in the city of Derry long before the events of the 2017 film “It” and its sequel in 2019. This creature wakes up from its hibernation every 27 years and wreaks havoc for one year. Pennywise feeds off of this terror that keeps him alive for the next 27 years. The key element in the story of “Anne: Welcome to the Door” is the same: Pennywise and the terror he causes at the door.

In the latest trailer released for the series, we get to know the character named Leroy Hanlon, a black soldier who comes to Derry city after eight years of living in the base, looking for a normal life. However, what he and his family experience in this small town is terrifying. First is the racial tension, then the disappearances and sudden deaths. Fascinated by the mystery of these disappearances, a group of schoolchildren venture into the local sewers to find the missing, and you can guess what they encounter there.

The story of “Anne: Welcome to the Door” takes place in 1962, exactly 27 years before the events of the movie “Anne”, and due to the main black characters of the series, it also focuses on the most heartbreaking interlude of King’s book; On a night club called “Black Spot” whose customers are all black. One night, Black Spot is set on fire by a group of white racists, and many blacks die in the fire.

As soon as you know, the black spot case occurs in Stephen King’s book in the 1930s; But the “Welcome to Door” series adheres to the timeline of film adaptations. Therefore, the time of this incident has been changed to 1962 and deals with the racial tensions of that era and the civil rights movement in the United States.

Taylor Page, who played the role of Charlotte Hanlon in the series about the issue of race in the story “Welcome to Derry”, said:

“It’s really scary that you have this clown doing evil things and at the same time, the silence and the lack of morality in the society, that you’re just minding your own business. Some people have their rights, but we don’t have a problem with the fact that some people don’t have these rights, people who happen to be black. There is a feeling that this (racism) is really wrong. But no one has a problem with that…”

The Mosquitoes have also confirmed that there will be “a few flashbacks” during the series. They told Entertainment Weekly: “Pennywise’s hibernation period is twenty-seven years. This period of American history (the period in which the story of the series takes place) is a different period, with new fears for children and adults and the devastation of the Cold War. Every 27 years that (it) appears, two catastrophic events occur, one at the beginning of the cycle and one at the end. “We use Black Spot as an event around which many stories are formed.”

Will “Ann: Welcome to the Door” be connected to the “Ann” movies?

Anne: Welcome to the Door serves as a prequel to the Anne films, directed by Andy Muschietti, and even Moschitti himself and his sister (who produced the films) are back to make the series. “Welcome to Derry” wants to cover the background story and history of more than a thousand pages of Stephen King’s book, which the film adaptations did not have the opportunity to deal with. King included several interludes in “It” in which he delves into Derry’s bloody history from the perspective of neighborhood librarian (and Loser’s Club member) Mike Hanlon, and how the creature that it It is known what role it may play in this bloody history.

The Moschittis have explained about this: “We tell the story of the cutscenes, written by Mike Hanlon based on his own research and interviews with the old people of the city. “In ‘Welcome to the Door’ we deal with the main themes of the film, (like) friendship, loss, the power of belief, but the story also focuses on the use of fear as a weapon, which is one of the things that is relevant to our time.”

According to what we got from the trailers, the series makes many references to the movies. Since the story takes place in the 60s, Major Hanlon is related to Mike Hanlon, one of the main characters of the film. It seems that there are references to both the statue of Paul Bunyan (who later pursues Richie Tozier in the second film “It”) and Alvin Marsh, who is Beverly Marsh’s abusive father in both the books and the movies.

In addition to Andy Moschitti’s films, you can find many references and connections to other Stephen King works in the series. Somewhere in the trailers, we see that people escape from the mist (The Mist), some are sent to Shawshank prison (The Shawshank Redemption), and even the role of the younger version of Dick Halloran from “The Shining” is found in the series!

Is Pennywise in Anne: Welcome to Derry?

Yes, the smiling clown “Ann” will appear in the series. Bill Skashgaard, who played Pennywise from the “Ann” films, has reprised his role as the clown. Although the head of the crazy clown is constantly found in the trailers of the series, do not expect him to appear prominently. The Mosquitoes have explained about Pennywise’s appearance in “Anne: Welcome to the Door” that they want to go back to Pennywise’s roots. One of the most attractive points of the book is its mystery, and according to what Andy Muschietti said at the Comic-Con panel of the series, “Welcome to Door” is going to reveal these mysteries.

Who are the agents and actors of the series?

As we said, the director and producer of the “It” movies are back again for the series. Andy Moschitti and his sister Barbara Moschitti created the series for HBO this time along with Jason Fox, one of the producers of “It: Part II”. Fox along with Brad Caleb Kane are the showrunners of the series. Kane previously wrote and produced series such as Tokyo Vice and Fringe.

The Moschittis told Entertainment Weekly about the new series: “It’s a book that we really love and we felt like there were still a lot of stories to tell. This book is so full of characters and events that we thought we would do justice to the book and fans by returning to this world.

And about the actors. Moschitti announced at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2025 that Joan Adepo will be the main character in the series. He plays Leroy Hanlon, Mike Hanlon’s grandfather. Adepo previously starred in another adaptation of Stephen King’s works, the 2020 series “The Stand”. Adepo described his character as “taken from the book” and added:

“(Leroy) is very charming, brave, family-oriented, lovable and also a man from that era in the 60s. Maybe most men at that time did not express their feelings as much as they do now. “I think LeRoy felt a great responsibility on his shoulders to settle his family and he thought this city (Derry) was the best place for them to grow up.”

Taylor Page as Charlotte in Anne: Welcome to the Door

Taylor Page plays LeRoy’s wife, Charlotte, who rebels against the establishment more than her husband. “Instinctively, (it’s clear) something’s not right,” Page said of her character. She (Charlotte) always felt that way in her heart. Even in his private life. She thinks, ‘My husband is committed to this role and duty for his country, but is this country also committed to his freedom and our rights (blacks)?’ “The interesting thing about someone living in 1962, especially a woman, is that you might think that way, but you had to suppress (those thoughts) to get out of that period alive.”

Chris Chalk as Dick Halloran in Anne: Welcome to the Door

Chris Chalk, who you probably know from shows like Perry Mason and Gotham, plays a familiar character to King fans in Anne: Welcome to Derry: Dick Halloran. We have seen in the trailers that he is one of those who used Black Spot; But you must remember Halloran’s character as the kind hotel chef in “The Shining”. Scatman Crauters played Dick in Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 adaptation, and Carl Lambley played the role in King’s sequel to The Shining, Mike Flanagan’s 2019 Doctor Sleep.

Other actors of “Anne: Welcome to the Door” include James Reimar (Dexter), Rudy Mancuso (The Flash), Steven Ryder (Daredevil) and Madeleine Stowe (Revenge).

How many episodes will the series have? When is its release date?

The first season of the series “Anne: Welcome to Door” 9 episodes has These episodes come to HBO weekly. The first episode October 26 This year, that is November 4will be published.

What do we know about the second season of “Anne: Welcome to the Door”?

Andy Muschietti said in January 2025 that they are planning to produce three seasons of the series, with each season set in a different era. He also confirmed this at the Comic-Con panel of “It: Welcome to the Door.” He explained: “We follow three seasons of this series based on each of these catastrophic events. There is a reason the story is told in reverse (goes backwards in time). Therefore, the first chapter is related to 1962, the second chapter is related to 1935 and the third chapter is related to 1908. That is, each time we go back 27 years to reach the time when Pennywise became the terrifying monster we know today.

King’s book examines several harrowing events in Derry’s history: in addition to the Black Spot fire, King recounts the massacre of a gang of bank robbers and an explosion at the town’s Kitchener Iron Works, which killed several children. Muschietti noted that each of these events will be explored if the series is renewed for future seasons.

Source: EW