MOVIE NEWS – The second season of IT: Welcome to Derry will take viewers back to 1935, during the darkest years of the Great Depression. Andy Muschietti says Derry’s new group of young characters will face far harsher circumstances as they struggle to survive another of Pennywise’s 27-year cycles of terror.

The first season of IT: Welcome to Derry concluded in January 2026. Serving as a prequel to It from 2017 and It Chapter Two from 2019, the series began in 1962, when a group of children living in a seemingly peaceful small town encountered a horrific entity that frequently assumes the form of the murderous clown Pennywise, once again played by Bill Skarsgård. HBO took some time before officially ordering another season, but the renewal eventually arrived, and creator Andy Muschietti has now started revealing what audiences can expect from the next chapter.

Season 2 will move the story to 1935, placing it in the middle of the Great Depression. In Stephen King’s original novel, simply titled It, Pennywise awakens every 27 years to terrorize the Maine town of Derry, while each season of the television series is designed to travel further into the past and explore another one of those cycles. “There’s gonna be a lot of that Depression-era hustling in the air in our characters,” Muschietti told Variety. “Everybody’s trying to get by and survive the circumstances. They are gonna do crazy things. And of course, the social, cultural, horrible things that were happening in the era, too. We’re not going to skip those. They are the very center and the heart of our story.”

Muschietti explained that Derry will almost resemble a graveyard or the discarded carcass of something that was once alive. “People are depleted, poor, tired, jobless, homeless. The kids don’t have a suburban, comforting life. They’re in a very different situation. Some of them are orphans or runaways, and so the environment is pretty bleak. But there’s always the aspect of hope that is always there, burning, and it’s what keeps our new group going.”

That description of Derry’s desperate condition is particularly intriguing when compared with King’s novel. The book suggests that the town remains relatively prosperous throughout most of its existence, partly because Pennywise uses his influence from beneath the streets to manipulate events in his favor. Even an ancient supernatural creature, however, may be unable to protect the town completely from the 1929 stock market crash and the economic devastation that followed.

Another Bloody Chapter From Derry’s Past

Like the first season, the next installment of IT: Welcome to Derry will draw from one of the interludes in King’s novel, which temporarily step away from the main plot to explore another chapter in the town’s violent history. This time, the story will focus on the Bradley Gang Massacre, in which a group of outlaws hides in Derry while fleeing the FBI until the townspeople decide to take matters into their own hands.

Because Season 2 takes place decades before the first, none of the young characters introduced in the opening season will be present in the same form, although members of their family lines will appear. The Season 1 finale revealed that Pennywise exists outside conventional time and is attempting to wipe out particular bloodlines before they can eventually produce the people who destroy him in the It movies. “There will always be the connection, there’s a family tree that appears,” Muschietti explained, confirming that the new storyline will remain directly tied to characters and events audiences already know.

Viewers should not expect to see the new episodes particularly soon. “We’re very excited, we’re in the writers’ room right now,” Muschietti said. If the creative team is only beginning to shape the story and prepare the scripts, the second season of IT: Welcome to Derry is unlikely to premiere before 2027 at the earliest. Until then, audiences still have plenty of other Stephen King adaptations available to explore.

Source: MovieWeb