HBO Max Renews Stephen King Series It: Welcome to Derry for Season 2

It has been a strong year for horror fans. Obsession became one of 2026’s biggest surprise hits. Backrooms turned an internet nightmare into a box-office smash. Even smaller releases like Hokum found an audience. Now one of Stephen King’s most iconic stories is getting another chapter. HBO has officially renewed It: Welcome to Derry for a second season, which will send Pennywise and the cursed Maine town even further into the past.

The renewal isn’t a big surprise. Since its premiere last year, Welcome to Derry has become one of HBO Max’s four biggest series debuts globally. Creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti have also been open about their plans to keep exploring Derry’s history.

What is It: Welcome to Derry about?

It: Welcome to Derry is a prequel to Andy Muschietti’s movies It and It: Chapter Two. It expands on the history of King’s famously cursed town.

Season 1 takes place in 1962, 27 years before the events of the first It movie. A new group of children starts investigating the disappearances and horrors plaguing Derry. Meanwhile, Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), Charlotte Hanlon (Taylour Paige) and Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) get caught up in a military attempt to understand, and possibly weaponize, the supernatural force beneath the town. That force eventually shows one of its most recognizable faces: Pennywise, once again played by Bill Skarsgård.

The series uses its longer TV runtime to explore both its young characters and Derry itself. It shows how Pennywise’s influence reaches beyond individual victims and infects the whole community.

In Polygon’s review of the first season, we called Welcome to Derry “the best, scariest It story yet.” We praised its wider look at Derry, its ensemble cast and the way its episodic format gave the story room the movies never had. We also found that the series recaptured some of the coming-of-age magic that made both 2017’s It and the first season of Stranger Things so effective.

What to expect from season 2

The second season will jump back another 27 years, from 1962 to 1935, during the Great Depression. According to HBO, it will center on the massacre of the Bradley Gang. The gang is a group of bank robbers who come to Derry to buy ammunition and instead run into something much worse.

The incident comes straight from King’s It. In the book, the Bradley Gang massacre is one of several historical atrocities tied to Pennywise’s recurring appearances in Derry. Season 1 already teased the gang in the show’s opening credits and through a vintage car linked to the criminals, which Hallorann uncovers.

HBO has not announced casting for the new season. That includes whether Skarsgård will officially return as Pennywise. Given the show’s premise, though, It itself will almost certainly play an important role.

HBO has not announced a release date for It: Welcome to Derry season 2.

Related: It: Welcome to Derry subverts a frustrating horror movie trope

Source: Polygon