‘Welcome to Derry’: Andy and Barbara Muschietti explode Stephen King’s horror universe

Andy and Barbara Muschietti are horror experts. Before taking on blockbusters like "The Flash," the Muschietti siblings made their Hollywood entrance through horror, in a project spearheaded by Guillermo del Toro. After watching a three-minute short featuring two little girls being chased by an entity known as “Mama,” Del Toro reached out to the siblings and helped convert the short, which he described as “one of the scariest little scenes” he’d ever seen, into a feature film that came out in 2012.

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Through the years, the Muschiettis have become two powerful figures in Hollywood, with Andy in the director's chair and Barbara as one of his producers. Now, they're releasing their first TV series, "Welcome to Derry," a prequel to "It," exploring an earlier story of Pennywise the Clown. The book, written by Stephen King and published in 1986, is considered by many as his masterpiece — a sprawling tale of childhood fears and small-town trauma that inspired a 1990s mini-series starring Tim Curry, the Muschiettis' two hit films, and now, an HBO show. 

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"Welcome to Derry" premiered earlier this month, following a new cast of characters in the 1960s as they come face to face with Pennywise. The series marks the first time an original story is told within the world of "It," while also marking the Muschiettis’ longest investment in a project — a culmination of nearly a decade of living with these characters.

“My relationship to the book before we started wasn't the same as it is now. Your desires change completely,” said Andy in an interview with ¡HOLA! “The idea of Welcome to Derry started around the time when we were finishing It: Chapter Two, out of conversations with Bill Skarsgård. We were very curious about a movie on the origins of Pennywise. And then our thoughts evolved, and we decided to make it into a longer medium.”

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Skarsgård is the only cast member from the films returning for the series, also serving as an executive producer.

While "Welcome to Derry" is mostly made up of new original characters and stories, it takes inspiration from key parts of the book that are hinted at or described cryptically, giving Muschietti and his team the room to explore and ask the questions they found interesting. “It was mainly about creating stories around these big events,” said Andy, referring to the interludes featured in the original novel, which are interspersed throughout the text and mentioned in passing in the films. 

Andy and Barbara's work had the full support of King, who's already shared his approval of the series on social media. “It's incredibly exciting and something we felt comfortable doing because we have Steve's blessing,” said Barbara of the freedom they have in shaping this version of the story. “We have great communication with him. He sees what we do, and he trusts our process and also gets super excited,” she added with a laugh.

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Andy and Barbara also discussed the differences in making a horror story fit in a television medium versus a film. “I treat every episode of this like a movie, even though there's a continuity and the flow of a bigger story,” said Andy.

In Barbara’s case, she emphasizes the importance of having a director with a command of the horror genre on set as key to this adaptation. “I come from film, so the director is God,” she said, something that shifts on a TV set, where everything is geared towards serving the script. “In genre, a director is more important than ever because a scare on the page doesn't necessarily translate to a scare on the screen.”

Horror is one of the best-selling genres worldwide, whether in literature, film, or television. Although these stories have long been deemed as less prestigious than other forms of storytelling, they have passionate audiences and often keep the box office alive. The genre remains misunderstood — an outlier, dismissed by many critics as lesser than real art. “It,” one of the most powerful explorations of childhood fears, forces audiences to confront uncomfortable questions, revisiting their own memories, anxieties, and traumas through a magnified lens. It’s a timeless story that continues to create new fans across generations, planting an unsettling seed: What if your childhood fears were true? What if the monster under the bed was more than just the tingling in the back of your neck?

“Welcome to Derry” premieres new episodes on Sundays on HBO Max.