The end is almost here… or, perhaps, it’s just the end of the beginning? In a few days, IT: Welcome To Derry Season 1 will air its finale on HBO, and there are oh so many questions in the minds of Stephen King fans wondering about where things may go next. There has been much talk surrounding the show about a big picture plan involving future seasons principally set in 1935 and 1908… but will the narrative shift mean that we are leaving behind the characters we’ve met and grown to love in 1962? And what about exploring the Derry, Maine of the not-too-distant future?
I am an unabashed nerd when it comes to timeline questions like these, so I naturally had to ask them earlier this month when I conducted a virtual interview with Jason Fuchs – the IT: Welcome To Derry co-showrunner who is also credited with developing the series alongside Andy and Barbara Muschietti. After last Thursday’s column exploring how Bill Skarsgård was convinced to join the show, this week’s edition of The King Beat explores what we can potentially expect from the future (and I say “potentially” because a renewal has not yet been announced). There’s a whole lot to discuss, so let’s dig in.
Just Because Welcome To Derry Season 1 Is Ending Doesn’t Mean We’re Saying Goodbye To The Main Characters
When I first learned of IT: Welcome To Derry’s aforementioned three-season plan, the impression that I got was to expect something akin to what has been brilliantly executed with the FX series Fargo: it’s all the same continuity, and there are direct connections between each of the five existing runs, but they are also independent narratives that feature their own respective ensembles of protagonists and antagonists.
As I’ve watched the new Stephen King series, however, I’ve questioned if I properly understood the plan. Specifically, I’ve been surprised by the various flashbacks that the show has already offered in multiple episodes, with Episode 6 ("In the Name of the Father") and Episode 7 ("The Black Spot") featuring extended sequences set in 1935 and 1908. These moments in front of mind, I’ve wondered what it could mean for potential flashforwards to 1962 in future seasons.
I explained my thinking to Jason Fuchs, and he confirmed that there isn’t stringent thinking behind the scenes defining the end of Season 1 as the end of our time with the Hanlons, the Grogans, Lilly Bainbridge and Marge Truman. Said the filmmaker,
Who said we're done with 1962? I think that one of the things that's fun about adapting and using a novel as rich as Stephen King's IT is that there's just always opportunities. It's mythology and character and history… I think when it comes to the stories within this universe, they can go a lot of different directions. Expect the unexpected.
For those who need a quick refresher course on how things work in the town of Derry, IT is a vicious monster that feasts on fear and particularly loves targeting children, but it has a hibernation cycle of 27 years. In the aftermath of the events of 1962, it will go into a slumber and not wake up until it’s time to feed again in 1989 a.k.a. the setting of the film IT: Chapter One. But just because the yet-to-be-identified survivors of Season 1 won’t have more direct confrontations with Pennywise doesn’t mean their stories won’t be worth further exploring.
Part of the reason why the filmmakers are moving back in time with the plan for IT: Welcome To Derry is because the show is planning to follow up the tale of The Black Spot by exploring other landmark events in the history of the titular town from Stephen King’s novel – specifically the Bradley Gang massacre (which goes down in 1935) and the explosion at Kitchener Ironworks during an Easter Egg hunt (1908). But while those are guideposts of sorts, Jason Fuchs suggests that fans keep their minds open and ready for surprises.
We've obviously talked pretty publicly, I know Andy has, about a 1935 and a 1908 set Season 2 and 3, but I personally would never shut the door on anything. Part of the fun of these stories are the surprises, the unexpected turns, the unexpected locations time-wise that you wind up in.
The 20th century is clearly being well explored by IT: Welcome To Derry, and IT: Chapter 2 is primarily set in 2016, but that leads me to another line of inquiry that I broached with the HBO series co-showrunner: what about the future?
Welcome To Derry: 2044?
Is Pennywise really dead? In Stephen King’s IT (and as adapted in IT: Chapter 2), the adult Losers Club seems to kill the trans-dimensional entity… but Constant Readers have been given reason to question whether or not IT is really one. In the 2001 novel Dreamcatcher, a plaque in Derry dedicated to the town’s heroes is besmirched with graffiti that bluntly reads “Pennywise Lives,” and in 2021’s Later, the Deadlights make a shocking return. Since IT was first published in 1986, we have not seen King fully resurrect his most famous monster… but could we perhaps see it happen at some point in the future of IT: Welcome To Derry?
Within the timeline of the IT movies and the HBO series, the next potential appearance from Pennywise would be in the year 2044 (a.k.a. 27 years after 2016). If future seasons of Welcome To Derry feature flashforwards to events post-1962, I don’t think it’s out of bounds for there to also be scenes exploring the town in a time that is now just a little over 18 years away. Jason Fuchs didn’t shut the door on the idea, but he also suggested that it would probably be best to leave Stephen King to potentially tell that story:
I think that you never know where stories take you, and I'd never shut the door on anything. Having said that, I think that there is, in my mind, a distinction between a Welcome to Derry Story and a broader Stephen King universe story. And I would say within the context of the Welcome to Derry umbrella, I foresee this going backwards in time more so than into the future.
Taking into consideration the development of the show, this is an understandable approach. Creative liberties are being taken and big new ideas have been introduced (for example, the actions of Ingrid Kersh, motivated to see the return of her father), but the foundation for everything that we’ve seen in IT: Welcome To Derry is featured in the pages of Stephen King’s book. To explore the year 2044 would be taking a step beyond that foundation and into fresh territory that could perhaps step on King’s toes.
Adding to my mentions of Dreamcatcher and Later, Jason Fuchs noted that Insomnia is another Derry-set story that takes place in the aftermath of the victory of the Losers Club – and he pointed to the fact that the books and the adaptations are on very different timelines (in the book, the adult Losers defeated IT in 1985, so his year of return would have been 2012). For now, Fuchs and his fellow writers are sticking with the exiting source material. He added,
I think there are other stories that, I mean, we know obviously Insomnia is something that takes place in universe after the final events of IT. And the films are IT Chapter Two, but after the final events of the IT novel. So yeah, there's certainly more stories to tell in Derry. Whether or not that's something that happens, I have no clue. Our heads are sort of been locked into Season 1 and to a far lesser extent where things could go beyond that in the Welcome To Derry world.
It sounds like the idea of peeking into the future via Welcome To Derry is an extreme longshot, but I will offer this fun bit up as consolation: when I spoke with Jaeden Martell, Finn Wolfhard, Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray Taylor, Jack Dylan Grazer, Wyatt Oleff, and Sophia Lillis during the IT: Chapter Two press day in 2019, I asked if they would perhaps be game to remake the movie in 2044, reprising their original roles, and every single one of them was on-board with the idea. So while the return of Pennywise remains a big maybe (Stephen King is presently busy writing the untitled Talisman 3, which is still awaiting a release date), King fans can hold out hope that project could someday happen.
That brings us to the end of this week’s edition of The King Beat, but I would highly recommend keeping an eye out for my column arriving next Thursday, as I will be following the end of IT: Welcome To Derry Season 1 by publishing my ranking of all six Stephen King adaptations released in 2025. Be on the lookout for that, and to keep up to date with all of the King projects Hollywood presently has in the works, check out our Upcoming Stephen King Movies and TV guide.
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