Anyone tuning in to an IT prequel series would surely have been expecting some unsettling scenes of gruesome carnage (which the show delivered in its first few minutes), but we're not sure even hardcore fans of the movies or Stephen King's novel will have anticipated what went down at the end of the very first episode.
After searching for their missing (almost certainly doomed) pal Matty (Miles Ekhardt) for most of the series premiere, Lilly (Clara Stack), Ronnie (Amanda Christine), Phil (Jack Molloy Legault), Teddy (Mikkal Karim-Fidler), and Susie's (Matilda Legault) investigation leads them to the Capitol movie theater... which only two of them end up walking out of.
During a screening of The Music Man, the demonic baby that attacked Matty at the beginning of the episode leaps from the screen and brutally dispatches everyone but Ronnie and Lilly. This group of kids featured prominently in the show's marketing, suggesting that the five friends would make up an earlier version of The Losers' Club.
"We love it," co-creator Barbara Muschietti tells Entertainment Weekly. "It's our Red Wedding."
Brother Andy, who directed the premiere, adds, "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."
In Jason Fuchs' original script, all of the kids survived.
"It was a product of that mini room experience where we decided, 'What if this happened?'" the writer recalls. "So the network didn't know that was going to happen in the context of the pitch. We had a wall with headshots of child actors who would've played the kids in [episode] 101. Andy theatrically stood up as I was pitching. I got to the part where all of them, other than Lilly and Ronnie, being eaten. Andy pulled the paper down, and there was a whole other group of kids [headshots] under there. I'll never forget seeing their faces and feeling like, 'If we can replicate their reaction in the room with audiences at home, we'll have a really interesting, exciting, satisfying way to end episode 1.'"
We know that Bill Skarsgärd will return as Pennywise the Clown later in the season (probably not until the finale), but we will see the ancient entity take several different forms - including that messed-up baby - in the meantime.
“I think he’s even more ravenous,” Fuchs said of this version of Pennywise in a separate interview with The Wrap. “We wanted to explore the more human side of that character — particularly the Pennywise/Bob Gray duality. We wanted to understand more about this creature and why it behaves in the way it does, why it’s chosen Derry as its forever hunting grounds, why it’s so attracted to Pennywise the Dancing Clown as its favorite manifestation that it keeps coming back to.”
Did you watch the series premiere of IT: Welcome to Derry? If so, what did you think?
“As teenagers, we took turns reading chapters of Stephen King’s It until the thick paperback fell to pieces,” the Muschiettis said in a statement when the project was first announced. “It is an epic story that contains multitudes, far beyond what we could explore in our It movies. We can’t wait to share the depths of Steve’s novel, in all its heart, humor, humanity and horror.”
“I’m excited that the story of Derry, Maine’s most haunted city, is continuing, and I’m glad Andy Muschietti is going to be overseeing the frightening festivities, along with a brain trust including his talented sister, Barbara,” added author Stephen King. “Red balloons all around!”
IT: Welcome to Derry also stars Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso, and is set to premiere this October.