Bill Skarsgård will star in and executive produce the anticipated It television prequel series, which has a working title of Welcome to Derry. He’s set to reprise the title role from New Line’s hit 2017 supernatural horror film, It, and its 2019 sequel, It Chapter Two, Deadline is reporting.
On the show, which is being produced by Warner Bros. Television, Skarsgård will reunite with other key members from the It movie franchise. Those filmmakers include the two movies’ director, Andy Muschietti, as well as his sister, producer Barbara Muschietti, and Chapter Two co-producer Jason Fuchs.
The trio are developing the television adaptation of Stephen King’s classic 1986 horror novel of the same name. They’ll be joined on the series by the films’ other producers, Roy Lee and Dan Lin.
Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti will be executive producing Welcome to Derry through their Double Dream production company. They’ll be joined by Fuchs, Brad Caleb Kane, David Coatsworth, Skarsgård, Shelley Meals, Lee and Lin.
Fuchs, who wrote the teleplay for the series’ first episode, and Kane are serving as co-showrunners on the upcoming project. Andy Muschietti will helm four episodes of the nine-episode television series.
Welcome to Derry will be set in, and based on, King’s coming-of-age thriller-fantasy novel. The upcoming small screen adaptation will also expands the vision established by Andy Muschietti in the feature films, which garnered a combined $1.17 billion at the worldwide box office.
While the prequel television show has been in development since 2022, plot details have not yet been revealed. But the series is expected to be set several decades before the events of the first It movie, which chronicles Pennywise’s initial encounter with The Losers Club in the late 1980s.
Skarsgård will be joining Welcome to Derry‘s previously cast actors, including Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, and James Remar.
The upcoming show marks Skarsgård’s return to King’s streaming television universe. He previously worked with WBTV when he starred on the studio’s 2018-19 Hulu psychological horror series Castle Rock.
Skarsgård’s casting comes after he said during a recent Esquire magazine interview that he was upset with Warner Bros. Pictures. He felt the studio was “kind of mean” when it released a first-look image of him in character online over a full year before release. The then up-and-coming actor, who was already nervous over taking the job, found himself on the receiving end of harsh internet criticism from people who didn’t appreciate the Dancing Clown’s look.
The Saturn Award-nominated actor recently starred in John Wick: Chapter 4 and Boy Kills World. Besides Welcome to Derry, he’ll next be seen in The Crow, Nosferatu, Locked and Emperor.
Welcome to Derry was originally scheduled to be released this Halloween. However, HBO and Max chairman/CEO Casey Bloys has hinted it’s now more likely that the show will premiere next year.
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