Of all the upcoming Stephen King projects on the way — or hell, out of all the upcoming horror TV shows in general — I’m easily most intrigued by the streaming prequel Welcome to Derry, which will explore the world of the King’s IT and its two film adaptations, years before the Losers Club came around. But it sounds like my anticipation will need to get stretched out even more, as HBO and Max CEO Casey Bloys shared some bad news concerning both the Derry-set horror and the idyllic resort drama The White Lotus Season 3.
Welcome To Derry Update
While it was perhaps to be expected, if not desired, the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike and the WGA strike before it took a toll on the programming plans for both HBO and its streaming platform, and Casey Bloys revealed that those with Max subscriptions will be waiting for an undetermined amount of time for Welcome to Derry’s premiere. The previous goal to have the still-secretive project drop on fans’ laps during the next Halloween season is no longer feasible, with Bloys sharing this at a press event in New York (via Variety):
Welcome to Derry, we had had that scheduled for Halloween of 2024. That’s likely 2025.
I think we can all agree that an October arrival would have been a most ideal plan, presumably with a big focus on Andy Muschietti’s two IT films to set up the prequel’s narrative. Still not much is known about the project beyond some of Welcome to Derry’s cast members, though it seems plausible fans might have had a brief teaser to gnaw on by this point if not for the strikes, as the series began filming in May ahead of the production’s eventual postponement. At least we do know that Henry Bowers’ police chief father Clint Bowers will be in the mix, though it may be quite a while before we find out more.
Not to play the evil clown’s advocate here, but I can only hope that Casey Bloys saying “likely 2025” is tipped toward optimism that it could debut in December 2024 if anything falls into place. But I can’t help but feel as if he might be saying episodes may not be finalized for streaming until 2026. Maybe that’s just Derry’s bad vibes messing with my head, though. I’m just glad we don’t have to wait for a 27-year cycle to wrap up before it gets here.
The White Lotus Season 3 Update
Casey Bloys also shared a similarly dour announcement for the future of HBO’s thrilling mystery drama The White Lotus, which creator Mike White shifted to Thailand for Season 3. Unfortunately, White’s forward progress in shaping the future episodes was stymied by the WGA strike, and though it’s unclear where he’s currently at in that process, the new season hasn’t revealed any cast members beyond returning star Natasha Rothwell. So the crew probably still won’t be able to jump right into filming whenever that’s possible. As such, we’ll be waiting more than a year to see more rich people’s lives go wrong, as Bloys said:
White Lotus Season 3 probably would have been in play for 2024, it’s 2025.
Though The White Lotus will no doubt feature far more gorgeous scenery than Welcome to Derry, it likely won’t have as much effort being put into effects and other post-production necessities as the latter will no doubt need to bring IT’s haunting nature to life in full. So it may not take quite as long to come together once the cameras are rolling. Either way, we’ll be going through at least another four seasons before either one arrives.
In the meantime, both chapters of IT can be streamed on Max, as well as the first two seasons of The White Lotus.
