Welcome to Derry Takes a Cue from Jaws

Image: HBO

HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry transports viewers to 1960s Maine, a town poisoned by grudges and communal suffering. As a group of children pry into strange disappearances and the adults around them sense a gathering darkness, the series foregrounds Pennywise’s terrifying shape‑shifting more than the 1990 miniseries or the recent Muschietti films—while remaining part of the same narrative continuity.

Jason Fuchs, who co-wrote It: Chapter Two with the Muschiettis and now co‑creates Welcome to Derry, confirms that Bill Skarsgård’s Pennywise is a gradual presence rather than an immediate appearance. Skarsgård initially hesitated about revisiting the role because embodying such dark characters can be emotionally taxing for an actor; after discussing the story’s merits with the creative team he ultimately agreed to return, making his portrayal one of the show’s main attractions. Screen Rant has more on those conversations.

The Muschiettis have compared the timing of Pennywise’s reveal to how Spielberg and Spielberg‑era filmmakers revealed their monsters in classics like Jaws, stressing that restraint builds dread. As Fuchs told Entertainment Weekly, the creature’s many forms are central to the horror—beneath the clown visage lies something far less human, and the series takes full advantage of that unsettling unpredictability without relying solely on arachnid imagery for scares.

From its opening scenes the show lets those otherworldly manifestations haunt Derry, so the horror never feels sparse. The episodic format gives the creators room to expand the mythology of It in ways a single film cannot, and although Pennywise doesn’t dominate every early episode, his influence permeates the town long before his full arrival.

Source: Polygon