It: Welcome to Derry, the upcoming prequel series to Andy Muschietti’s two Stephen King-based It movies, screened the first 10 minutes during a late-night Saturday panel at Comic-Con. It more than sets expectations for the horrors to come. The main takeaway? Don’t get too attached to anyone, including the kids!
Muschietti and his sister/longtime producing partner, Barbara, were present to screen the footage with fans.
The opening of the first episode hones in on one particular little kid, who appears at least middle school-aged, even though he still sucks on a pacifier. He watches a movie in a theater but is caught by an employee who chases him out for being underage.
We meet Hank, a projectionist in the theater, and his young daughter, Ronnie, who helps the boy escape.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
Outside, it’s winter and snow covers the ground. The kid tries to hitch a ride out of Derry and meets a seemingly kind-hearted family — the dad behind the wheel, the pregnant mom in the passenger seat, and a brother-sister pair in the back. Things quickly get progressively more creepy in that car ride as the boy notices strange behaviors of his apparent saviors. As the events unfold, it’s revealed that this entire family is It, the shapeshifting, child-eating entity that continues to plague Derry for decades.
The boy, sadly, does not make it out alive. The family starts chanting “O-U-T!” heralding the arrival of a winged, demonic baby that births from the mother in bloody fashion. When the demon infant attacks, all we see of the boy is his pacifier fly out of the car window, land in the river, and drift toward It’s den in the sewers.
King’s It novel and Muschietti’s 2017 It movie adaptation open on a similar note with the introduction of a young boy, Georgie Denbrough, who is then killed off in brutal fashion.
Brooke Palmer/HBO
It: Welcome to Derry adheres to the timeline established in Muschietti’s movies, which is slightly tweaked from the original King novel. The main events — the “baseline,” as the Muschitti siblings previously told Entertainment Weekly — is 1962. The events are all based on the “interlude” chapters of King’s novel, which show Mike Hanlon interviewing citizens of Derry for information on past sightings of It.
Sign up for Entertainment Weekly‘s free daily newsletter to get breaking TV news, exclusive first looks, recaps, reviews, interviews with your favorite stars, and more.
The launch of the Black Spot, a speakeasy catering to Black patrons, and its burning will be core events depicted in the series, but it will be “an event in which many stories are built around,” the Muschiettis confirmed in the past.
Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Rudy Mancuso star on It: Welcome to Derry, which also returns Bill Skarsgård to the role of Pennywise, the clown form of It.
The nine-episode first season will premiere this October.
Check out more of EW’s coverage from San Diego Comic-Con 2025.
