IT Prequel Series Welcome to Derry to Air on HBO & Stream on Max

IT prequel series Welcome to Derry will be airing on HBO, as well as streaming on Max. The decision to air the show on HBO comes as part of Warner Bros. Discovery’s overall shift in content strategy. The company is following the blueprint of its hit Game of Thrones spinoff House of the Dragon, by airing premium IP on HBO, instead of relegating its high-budget premiums to being “Max exclusives” as originally planned. The Harry Potter TV series and DC’s Green Lantern series Lanterns have both also shifted from being Max exclusives to being HBO originals that will also stream on Max. 

It’s noted in the report that this shift in content strategy will begin in 2025. Two of Warner Bros. most highly-anticipated upcoming 2024 releases – DC’s Batman spinoff The Penguin and Dune prequel series Dune: Prophecy – will still be Max streaming exclusives. There are more questions hanging over Max’s second-tier original content properties like the breakout dramedy Hacks or The Sex Lives of College Girls. Even more uncertain are the Max series that have modest budgets but are based on major IPs: namely DC’s Peacemaker series (a tie-in to James Gunn’s DC Universe franchise), as well as And Just Like That…, the Sex and the City sequel series. Both series are on the bubble since they are strong draws as Max exclusives, but also successful enough (respectively) to be contenders on HBO. 

HBO and Max content chairman and CEO Casey Bloys is spearheading this shift in content distribution strategy; it’s a much-needed course correction from the quagmire Warner Bros. Discovery ended up in, with “HBO Max” and then “Max” failing to grab as big of a streaming market share as hoped, while the split approach to content distribution through TV and streaming arguably destabilized HBO’s once-perennial position as king of weekend appointment television (Saturday night movie premieres and Sunday night original content premieres). 

Bloys has indicated in interviews that he and “Sarah Aubrey [head of original programming at Max] and her team are trying to focus more on using the Warner Bros. IP to do big tentpole shows.”

What Is Welcome to Derry About? 

 Welcome to Derry is set in the infamous town of Derry, Maine that Pennywise terrorized for generations. It will take place decades before the events of IT. In the novel and original TV adaptation, the earliest events of the story unfold in the late ’50s, though in the two-part cinematic adaptation of the story, this timeline shifted forward for the earliest events taking place in the ’80s. With Welcome to Derry set to be an extension of those films, the new series looks to take place in the ’50s to explore bizarre events in the town that pre-dated the fatal run-ins with the entity living in the sewers of the town.

Welcome to Derry will star the previously announced Madeleine Stowe, Stephen Rider Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, and James Remar. IT movie star Bill Skarsgård will reprise his role as the iconic clown Pennywise; Skarsgård will reunite with Andy and Barbara Muschietti, the minds behind both IT films. Additionally, Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane serve as co-showrunners of Welcome to Derry.

Source: THR