We here at FANGORIA are, of course, monitoring the Welcome to Derry situation very closely. How could we not? Such a thing would seem to be right up our alley: an expansion of Stephen King’s IT mythology; the close involvement of Andy and Barbara Muschietti, who brought both IT and IT: Chapter Two to the big screen; the promise of further Pennywise-based murder shenanigans – what’s not to be excited about?
Anyway, today brings us another little crumb of information: in a recent interview with Variety, HBO Max exec Sarah Aubrey says that Welcome to Derry will not be skimping on the “demented scares” Stephen King fans might expect from the series.
Says Aubrey:
“We have been working with [showrunners] Jason Fuchs, Brad Caleb Caine, [and executive producers] Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti very closely. They’re so deep into this mythology and they have such a firm handle on the storytelling around these characters and also the demented scares that they’re putting into things. Sometimes I’m, like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Just all the wild ways they think up to terrify us. You’ll be hearing more concretely about that development very soon … Andy is very involved in every bit of this, so that is the real recipe for success and for delighting fans.”
See, now, that’s the way we want our executives to be talking. “Yeah, the freaks running this series are absolute nerds for the material and are jam-packing the damn thing with unhinged nightmare imagery.” In situations like this, you want an exec who’s gonna encourage the creative talent while also expressing borderline nervousness about being in the same room with ’em.
With Welcome to Derry‘s showrunners having been recently chosen and a writer’s room having been in operation for several months, we’re expecting things on this series to heat up sooner rather than later. Stay tuned for further updates on this one, including an answer to our current biggest question about Welcome to Derry: Who will be suiting up as Pennywise?
