🔗 Share this article

Audiences are thrilled for the chilling show Welcome to Derry, which is receiving positive feedback and drawing from references from additional King stories. Just one day after launch, the network announced that the next chapter will debut sooner than expected, timed perfectly for October 31st.

Premiere Shift Information

Kicking off on Halloween night at 12 a.m. Pacific Time, the next part of the Derry prequel will make its debut on HBO Max, prior to its linear broadcast. Subsequent episodes of the show's first season will continue to air on Sundays on the network and streaming service, building toward the final episode on December 14th.

Series Overview

Taking place within Stephen King’s It universe, It: Welcome to Derry borrows elements from the classic book while building upon the world realized by director Andy Muschietti in It and It Chapter Two. It Chapter One centered on kids and teens battling unimaginable horrors, so it’s fitting that the series upholds that legacy. Nevertheless, the debut of the streaming show shows it aimed to raise the stakes, delivering even more intense scares than Muschietti’s films and establishing a brutal tone for the rest of the season.

Setting and Themes

Taking place in the 1960s, the series presents a different group of adults and children residing in a apparently peaceful community hiding a dark secret. The town operates on a cruel, recurring cycle—characterized by hostility, discrimination, and otherworldly forces, as a monstrous presence returns every 27 years. Although It: Welcome to Derry might sound like it strays too near to the films on the surface, what differentiates the HBO Max series is its parallel storytelling—unfolding through the perspectives of kids and grown-ups concurrently. The kids are highly exposed to It's terror, but older characters also face confronting their individual fears arising from local discrimination and lurking supernatural forces.

The series airs on Halloween at midnight PT.