Welcome to Derry is crucial viewing for fans of other Stephen King novels

This post contains Major spoilers For Stephen King’s movie “It”.

Andy Muschietti’s film “It” (and its 2019 follow-up, “It Chapter Two”) makes a spirited attempt to embody Stephen King’s complex horror world as depicted in the novel of the same name. However, these entries barely scratch the surface in terms of the surreal origins of Pennywise the Clown, along with the multi-cosmic implications that have connections to some of King’s novels. This desire to delve deeper necessitates Muschietti’s upcoming novel It: Welcome to Derry. Which will serve as a (potentially) multi-season prequel series revealing the terrifying reality of living in Derry, Maine. per November 2025 issue of SFX Magazineshowrunners Andy and Barbara Muschietti intend to establish the basics of this world in the first season and use subsequent seasons to “look at all the bigger questions” about the titular monster, it.

While the films give a fairly simplistic explanation of Pennywise’s origins, they don’t explain her homeworld – known as the Macroverse – and how it connects to our own. “What I want the audience to feel is that everything they know about him is just the tip of the iceberg…” Muschietti explains in the interview, while also mentioning that the show’s lore will tie into multiversal major characters from other King novels:

“It will not only reveal the lives and struggles of the people of Derry in the past and their relationships to the characters we know, but it will also be a breakthrough into and towards the other side, the Macroverse, the other dimension that Stephen King talks about in many of his books (…) this line that crosses a lot of his works, which is basically the world on the other side – the Macroverse, the Turtle, Gan, Crimson King, and The Dark. The tower and the columns surrounding it.”

Maturin’s name may not ring a bell when it comes to Muschietti’s “It” films (some glaring Easter eggs notwithstanding), but this is the “Turtle” the director is referring to in the aforementioned quote. Maturin is no ordinary turtle, as he is said to have regurgitated King’s fantasy world (!) that is supposed to mirror our own, and is considered Pennywise’s arch-nemesis. Maturin’s moral loyalty appears to lean toward good, and is either shown or mentioned in some of King’s novels, including “The Wizard and the Glass” and “The Dark Tower.” Furthermore, the giant tortoise is known to communicate directly with Bill Denbrough in King’s film “It,” where he urges the child to stand alongside his friends and perform the Chod ritual.

Torino is an integral part of MacCoversebut there is much, much more to this extra-dimensional space that Muschietti wants to dissect in his next show. The true nature of Pennywise’s evil can only be understood if we look deeply into the abyss, which is what may happen Explain what she really wants and why she chose to terrorize Derryof all places. “What do you want? Why is she here? All the ambiguous elements of it, we’re going to tear them down and explain them,” Muschietti says with good humor, explaining that the scope of the story goes far beyond Pennywise and his Earthly reign of terror.

It goes without saying that die-hard King fans who love the Macroverse and its related elements will find “It: Welcome to Derry” particularly interesting. This doesn’t necessarily rule out newcomers or casual viewers, as the series can serve as an entry point into King’s dense world-building and the terrifying primal creatures that are part of it.