HBO's It: Welcome to Derry is trading the 1960s for the Great Depression, and it sounds like a much bigger swing. Showrunner Brad Caleb Kane gave an update on Season 2 to Deadline in an interview published on October 16th, describing it as a Warner Bros. gangster movie set in 1935, complete with bank robbers and a new take on Pennywise.
Work is well underway. "We're writing the scripts. We're about halfway through the writing of the scripts," Kane said. "We have a production schedule, we're greenlit for a Season 2, and Andy Muschietti's out there casting."
Bank Robbers, Hoovervilles, And Pennywise
The new season is built around the Bradley Gang, a crew of bank robbers who roll into Derry to stock up on ammunition and end up in a massacre. It is one of the dark chapters of Derry's past that Stephen King wrote into his 1986 novel It, and the show is turning it into a full season.
In the book, the Bradley Gang story comes from one of the Derry interludes, the sections where Mike Hanlon digs into the town's ugly history and finds the same patterns of violence repeating over and over. Turning a few pages of that history into a whole season gives the writers plenty of room to fill in the people, the town, and exactly how Pennywise fits into what happened.
Kane leaned hard into the genre mash-up. "I think it's a little bit out there, but it's 1935, it's a Warner Bros. gangster movie. It's bank robbers and Hoovervilles and street urchins riding the rails religious fundamentalism," he said.
That is a big tonal shift from Season 1, which leaned on a Cold War era small town and a military base. Mixing classic crime movie imagery with King's cosmic horror could give the second season a look all its own.
The headline tease is about the clown himself. Kane promised "a different kind of Pennywise, Pennywise the way you've never seen that character before," and added that it will be a challenge because the new season is bigger than the first.
Muschietti's It Universe Keeps Growing
Andy Muschietti directed the two It films for New Line, which became some of the most successful horror movies ever made. Welcome to Derry expands that same version of King's world, with Andy and Barbara Muschietti executive producing through their Double Dream banner and Andy now handling casting for the new season.
Bill Skarsgård, who played Pennywise in both films, came back for Season 1 alongside Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, and James Remar. Because every season jumps back 27 years, following the cycle in which Pennywise wakes up to feed, most of the human cast is likely to be new each time. Season 1 was set in 1962, 27 years before the first film. Season 2 lands in 1935.
Why HBO Brought It Back
The numbers made Season 2 an easy call. It: Welcome to Derry premiered in October 2025 and ranked among the top four series premieres globally in HBO Max history. The Season 1 finale reached a series-high 6.5 million US viewers in its first three days.
HBO officially renewed the series in August, with HBO Max head of original programming Sarah Aubrey promising that the team would "break new ground in season two, deepening the terror, the mystery ... and the unforgettable Pennywise lore that fans love to devour."
Kane now runs the show solo after co-running Season 1 with Jason Fuchs. He has another horror prequel on the go as well, with Crystal Lake, the Friday the 13th origin series starring Linda Cardellini as Pamela Voorhees, streaming now on Peacock.
There is no release window for Season 2 yet. With the scripts still being written and casting in progress, it will be a while before Derry opens its doors again.
Would you rather see Pennywise in a brand new form for the 1930s, or stick close to the clown Bill Skarsgård made famous?
Sound off with your thoughts in the comments below.