The trailer for HBO Max’s new Stephen King TV series has already revealed one major Easter egg for the author’s other famous work. About a minute into the trailer for IT: Welcome to Derry, we see a bus marked “Shawshank State Prison,” referencing the fictional state penitentiary that served as the setting for one of King’s most beloved stories. He has mentioned the prison in many other works, and filmmakers have worked it into adaptations as well, so it’s no surprise to see it here in the new series. Welcome to Derry is a prequel to King’s novel It, and since it’s an original story, Shawshank could have a greater role to play here. We’ll find out for sure when the series premieres on HBO Max in October.
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IT: Welcome to Derry is primarily concerned with the characters and concepts introduced in It, and referencing the two-part film adaptation released in 2017 and 2019. As it turns out, working in a Shawshank reference is not out place here at all, as the prison was even mentioned three times in King’s 1986 novel It. One of the stepfathers of one of the missing children was incarcerated there previously, while a teenager convicted of a hate crime is sentenced to a term there. A third character is dramatically threatened with Shawshank, highlighting how large it looms in the collective minds of the local community.
These references didn’t make it into the more recent film adaptations, but the prison could be more important to this prequel. The series is meant to be the origin story of Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård), depicting his attacks on Derry in the 1960s. We already know that one of the victims’ stepfathers had served time in Shawshank, and as this show will have to fill its runtime with new material, it could lean on this familiar setting.
According to producer Andy Muschietti, the primary source material for this show is the interlude chapters within It, essentially untangling the story and telling it in chronological order. It’s an interesting way to put material on screen that couldn’t fit in the movies, and it will produce a far different effect than the novel.
King has referenced Shawshank Prison in many stories and novels since 1982, but it hasn’t served as a setting for a new tale. However, the TV series Castle Rock did a lot with this prison, implicating it in some of the supernatural things going on in King’s work. In his own work, King has plenty of more obvious recurring locations and self-references, often tying his work together in surprising, subtle ways. Tracing these will become particularly important when the upcoming series adaptation of The Dark Tower comes to fruition.
In the meantime, IT: Welcome to Derry presents mysteries of its own. The show premieres sometime in October on HBO Max.
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