The upcoming HBO series IT – Welcome to Derry includes one of the main supporting characters from The Shining in what seems likely to be a pivotal role. Welcome to Derry is a prequel series to the Andy Muschietti-directed IT movies, adapted from King’s eponymous novel, focusing upon the evil supernatural clown Pennywise (played by a returning Bill Skarsgård) and his haunting of Derry, Maine in 1962 before his subsequent battles with the Losers Club decades later. With Pennywise’s return for more scares on Welcome to Derry, he is also not the only Stephen King character from the IT novel to appear on the show, with The Shining‘s Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) also set to be one of the show’s main characters.
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Hallorann is best known as the head chef of the Overlook Hotel, who becomes a close ally to the young Danny Torrance through their shared telepathic powers known as “shining”. While Hallorann is featured in both The Shining novel and its 2013 sequel Doctor Sleep, his role in their film adaptations deviates in one key way from the source material (spoiler: Hallorann doesn’t make it in Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining). However, Hallorann’s return in the 1960s-set Welcome to Derry exemplifies Hallorann’s continued importance in the world of Stephen King adaptations, and strongly hints at his potentially even greater presence in Welcome to Derry‘s future.
Dick Hallorann’s Role in Stephen King’s IT Novel Explained
Stephen King’s IT delves into Dick Hallorann’s life decades before he was the Overlook Hotel’s head chef, with Hallorann helping establish The Black Spot, a bar in Derry primarily frequented by black soldiers in the early 1930s. Unfortunately, The Black Spot met a grim end when a white supremacist group known as The Maine Legion of White Decency attacked and burned down the establishment. Among the survivors of the attack whom Hallorann manages to save is Will Hanlon.
Years later, Will became the father of one of the members of the Losers Club, Mike Hanlon, who later became one of the Losers’ key strategists in their two battles with Pennywise as kids and adults. While Hallorann’s role in King’s IT novel is relatively small, especially compared to his far more significant presence in The Shining, it is nonetheless one of the many building blocks that comprise the larger tapestry of Stephen King’s interconnected literary universe. By contrast, Hallorann’s appearances outside of King’s novels have been a bit more complex.
Dick Hallorann Has Had an Interesting Movie & TV History (& Almost Got His Own Movie)
While Dick Hallorann is neither seen nor mentioned in either the 1990 Stephen King’s IT miniseries or Andy Muschietti’s IT films, his main role in The Shining has been portrayed in multiple ways. Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining adapts Hallorann’s role as the Overlook’s chef, sharing Danny’s shining ability fairly closely, save for the ending in which Hallorann is murdered by the completely unhinged Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson) when he returns to the Overlook to help Danny (Danny Lloyd) and Wendy (Shelly Duvall). 1997’s miniseries Stephen King’s The Shining adapts Hallorann’s role in King’s novel more faithfully, with Hallorann (played by Melvin Van Peebles) helping Danny (Courtland Mead) and Wendy (Rebecca De Mornay) to escape the Overlook as the boiler explodes with Jack (Steven Weber) sacrificing himself to help them get away.
Hallorann’s role in 2019’s Doctor Sleep is more complicated due to his survival in the novel, death in Kubrick’s movie, and the film’s attempt to reconcile both versions into one. In King’s Doctor Sleep novel, Hallorann remains close to Danny and Wendy until his passing in 1999, though Hallorann still has one crucial interaction with Danny from beyond the grave by possessing the body of a dying woman. Due to Hallorann’s death in The Shining movie, he appears entirely in spirit form in the Doctor Sleep film (played by Carl Lumbly) in his scenes with Danny. Hallorann nearly had one more big-screen appearance to his name, with a Hallorann-centered prequel movie having entered development in advance of Doctor Sleep, though the movie’s unfortunate box office underperformance led to the project’s cancellation. With that said, Hallorann’s role in Welcome to Derry could be the ideal place for the friendly, telepathic chef to next appear.
Why Dick Hallorann’s Role in Welcome to Derry Could Be Very Significant
With Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann set to be one of the major players in Welcome to Derry, it heavily signals that his role in the story will be far more significant than in King’s IT novel. That is not to say that Welcome to Derry is discarding Hallorann’s backstory and the tragic destruction of The Black Spot in the novel, but it seems that the series is set to more actively build on Hallorann’s connection to Mike Hanlon and the Losers, especially with Charlotte and Leroy Hanlon being main characters on the show (played by Taylour Paige and Jovan Adepo). In fact, Hallorann’s pre-Shining history might even be a key element of the larger plans for Welcome to Derry.
Andy Muschietti has previously stated he envisions Welcome to Derry as covering multiple time periods in Derry, stretching back decades in 30-year intervals. Per Muschietti, the show is intended to cover Mike Hanlon’s research into the history of Pennywise’s periodic hauntings of Derry, with Muschietti even specifying the burning of The Black Spot as one such event. Between that and Hallorann’s prominent role on Welcome to Derry, it seems likely his role in King’s IT novel will be not just featured but greatly expanded upon on the show. Dick Hallorann might have met a sad fate in Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining with plans for a Hallorann prequel movie never getting off the ground, but Hallorann’s significant role on IT – Welcome to Derry shows how important a character he continues to be across multiple Stephen King movies and TV shows (especially with the potential of a Stephen King universe beginning to take shape across both platforms).
IT – Welcome to Derry will debut on HBO on October 26th.
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Image courtesy of Focus Features.
