The news surrounding the Max series Welcome To Derry keeps getting more interesting, but there was still one casting everyone was waiting to hear about regarding the IT sequel. Well, stop worrying because this series that will be available to those with a Max subscription just landed the big actor that will get everyone watching. Bill Skarsgård is officially on board to reprise his role as Pennywise the Clown.
News first arrived of Skarsgård's casting via Deadline, which also announced the actor would join as an executive producer. It's unknown at this time how large his presence will be as Pennywise, but we do know the series is set to be nine episodes. We also know the actor is joining an already stacked lineup of actors, including Jovan Adepo and James Remar, to name a few.
While it's a bummer that the IT prequel series originally set for 2024 was bumped to 2025, there's a silver lining in that the upcoming Stephen King adaptation has landed perhaps the most important star it could get. It'll be a reunion with director Andy Muschietti, who is handling four episodes of the series and has been sharing cool photos from the set with horror fans.
While some might've assumed Bill Skarsgård would always return for Welcome To Derry, it's worth noting that there was active speculation ahead of this that he would not reprise his role. Skarsgård confirmed he wasn't involved in a previous interview back in March, so it seemed entirely possible the show might recast the role or come up with some other reason explaining why Pennywise was not around or looked different than in the movies. I would've been down to see the character take some different forms beyond a clown, though I can't deny how disappointed I would've been had he not resembled the character Skarsgård played.
As mentioned, Welcome To Derry will be a prequel to IT, but what that means still remains to be seen. As for Pennywise, it's speculated the ancient entity is as old as the world itself. That said, the prequel does appear to take place at a time that's semi-recent, perhaps somewhere around the 1960s. That said, if there's a pitch someone has for an IT prequel that takes place in medieval times or something like that, I'm 100% on board and want to see that.
Welcome To Derry is in development and will premiere on Max at some point in 2025. With Bill Skarsgård on board, I'm sure this series will have a lot more eyes on it and face a lot more scrutiny as critics prepare to see the actor once again step into the terrifying clown shoes once again.
