As one of Stephen King‘s scariest pieces of IP gets the HBO Max series treatment, the bloodbath has commenced with the first episode.
Following this week’s debut of IT: Welcome to Derry, the show’s co-creators explained how they pulled off the pilot’s big twist, which they thought they’d “have to fight” the network to keep in the series.
“We love it. It’s our Red Wedding,” Barbara Muschietti told Entertainment Weekly of the episode, which predominantly features new adolescent characters Ronnie (Amanda Christine), Lilly (Clara Stack), Teddy (Mikkal Karim-Fidler), Phil (Jack Molloy Legault) and Susie (Matilda Legault).
After their friend Matty (Miles Ekhardt) is abducted by a supernatural family with a flying mutant baby in the opening scene, the kids set off to investigate. But by the end of the episode, they’re trapped in a dark theater with the same demonic infant, who kills off all but Ronnie and Lilly.
With the kids featured heavily in the show’s promotional materials, their quick demise was a shock for many viewers.
Jack Molloy Legault and Matilda Legault in ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’
Andy Muschietti, who directed the pilot and its recent feature-length predecessors, explained, “This is strategically a devastating event to set the audience into that sense of ‘nothing is safe in this world.’
“We kind of trick the audience into thinking that these are the new Losers,” added Andy. “Well, guess what? I guess they’re all dead.”
Jason Fuchs, co-showrunner with Brad Caleb Kane, revealed that the twist came as the “a product of that mini room experience where we decided, ‘What if this happened?’
“So the network didn’t know that was going to happen in the context of the pitch,” he recalled. “We had a wall with headshots of child actors who would’ve played the kids in [episode] 101. Andy theatrically stood up as I was pitching. I got to the part where all of them, other than Lilly and Ronnie, being eaten. Andy pulled the paper down, and there was a whole other group of kids [headshots] under there. I’ll never forget seeing their faces and feeling like, ‘If we can replicate their reaction in the room with audiences at home, we’ll have a really interesting, exciting, satisfying way to end episode 1.’”
Amanda Christine in ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’
Barbara said it was “a huge relief” that HBO was onboard with the twist, “because we went in [thinking] that will be the fight for us, we’re gonna have to fight to keep on pushing the horror and push the jump scares. It was the opposite.”
Following the show’s debut, the second episode of IT: Welcome to Derry will be made available early on HBO Max in celebration of Halloween, premiering Friday, Oct. 31 at 12am PT/3am ET on the streamer. The episode will run on HBO as scheduled on Sunday, Nov. 2 at 9pm ET/PT.
Subsequent episodes will continue to air Sundays on HBO and HBO Max, leading up to the Dec. 14 season finale.
