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Everything We Learned About HBO Max’s ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ at NYCC 2025
Do you know what time it is? It’s time to float, baby—because Stephen King’s It is returning to our screens! Developed by Andy Muschietti, Barbara Muschietti, and Jason Fuchs, the latter of whom also serves as co-showrunner alongside Brad Caleb Kane, It: Welcome to Derry is a prequel series to 2017’s It and 2019’s It Chapter Two and is set in 1962, 27 years before the events of the first film. Pennywise (played once again by Bill Skarsgård) is back for another child-eating cycle, so you’d better stay out of the sewers, even if you see a shiny red balloon down there.
Ahead of the series’ HBO and HBO Max premiere on October 26, the cast and creatives behind It: Welcome to Derry took to the Empire Stage at New York Comic Con to tease the horrors in store. If you couldn’t make it, never fear (well, maybe fear a little—you taste so much better when you’re afraid) because we’ve rounded up the highlights right here.
It: Welcome to Derry Is Based on Mike Hanlon’s Interludes from Stephen King’s Original Novel
If you’re a Constant Reader of Stephen King, you might remember that the 1986 novel It includes a series of five first-person “interludes” documented by Mike Hanlon (played in the films by Chosen Jacobs and Isaiah Mustafa), Derry’s town librarian and unofficial historian. These serve to flesh out the sinister world of Derry, which is a character in and of itself, and to help the reader appreciate just how far back Pennywise’s dark influence over the town goes. As Andy Muschietti put it during the panel, the interludes are “a puzzle that was intentionally unfinished in the book,” one that sparked an idea in the minds of the series’ creators.
“For me,” he says, “those interludes were kind of a blueprint for a different story, a hidden story, a story that is not told forward but a story that is told backward and has, as a final conclusion, the events in which It became Pennywise.” Why is the story being told backward? You’ll have to see the show to find out.
Photo taken by Samantha McLaren.
The Story Centers on Mike Hanlon’s Grandfather and His Family
We caught a glimpse of Leroy Hanlon, Mike Hanlon’s grandfather, in 2017’s It, where he was teaching the young boy how to use a bolt pistol to kill sheep. In It: Welcome to Derry, we’ll meet a young Leroy, played by Jovan Adepo, just as he’s moving to Derry with his wife, Charlotte (Taylour Paige), and their son—right in time for a kid to disappear in town.
Leroy is a “flyboy” in the U.S. Air Force, which was especially meaningful to Adepo, whose own father was a military man. “Getting a chance to play, in some form, a version of who I thought my father was as a child was really exciting for me,” he says.
Adepo notes that Leroy is in search of a better life for his family, which he’s probably not going to find in the clown murder capital of America, and teases that the man has a “very unique relationship with fear.” As for his wife, Paige says that Charlotte “has a sacral sense that something is just not right in Derry.
“It’s frightening to think that you’re losing your mind,” she says. “It’s frightening to feel hysterical, and everyone around you being like ‘oh, we’re good.’”
The 1960s Setting Creates New Opportunities for Anxiety and Fear
Stephen King’s It is split between the late 1950s (for the child portion) and the mid-1980s (for the adult portion). The film adaptations shifted these time periods up to 1989 and 2016, respectively. Since Pennywise’s murderous cycle occurs every 27 years, this means the prequel series is set in 1962, which allowed the creative team to tap into some of the themes and ideas present in King’s 50s setting.
“What we couldn’t do in the movie in terms of era… we’re doing now,” Andy Muschietti explains. “It’s closer in spirit and also in textures and feel to what the book was.”
“I love doing complex, interconnected, very character-rich shows,” says co-showrunner Brad Caleb Kane. “Setting it in 1962… that was very interesting to me, particularly when you’re dealing with a monster, an interdimensional creature, who uses fear and hatred to divide, and you’re talking about 1962 in America. Well, that’s a very rich and specific area to mine.”
This period of intense social anxiety and political instability in America would be nothing short of a buffet for Pennywise, for whom fear is flavoring. As King writes, “adults had their own terrors, and their glands could be tapped, opened so that all the chemicals of fear flooded the body and salted the meat.” In that case, our favorite Dancing Clown might want to monitor Its sodium levels.
“Derry is a microcosm for America,” Kane adds.
Indigenous Characters Will Play a Major Role in It: Welcome to Derry
It Chapter Two caught some heat in 2019 for its inauthentic inclusion of Native American spiritualism as a plot device. It: Welcome to Derry seems to be making strides to correct that mistake through the character of Rose, played in the series by Kimberly Guerrero. (That’s the same Rose, by the way, who owns Second Hand Rose, the pawn shop glimpsed in It Chapter Two and staffed by King himself in a cameo appearance.)
“The Stephen King universe is a family, but it’s a family that we’ve been left out of,” Guerrero says. “The native story has been there, but we were never able to join you all at the table. We have stories, too—and boy, what a story!”
Guerrero notes that the story of Derry, where something evil lurks in the sewers just out of sight, is one that will feel familiar to Indigenous audiences, saying, “I have never been to a reservation or a Native American community that did not have a place where you do not go. You do not go because you do not know.” But Rose does know, and she’s doing her darndest to protect against It. Her greatest fear is something happening on her watch.
“It was such a gift to get to play this Indigenous character that has had all this ancestral knowledge that’s been passed down from generation to generation to generation,” Guerrero enthuses. “Rose knows—my community in this story knows—everything that happened before Derry was Derry. There was a first Loser’s Club, and that Loser’s Club was a group of Indigenous kids.”
Photo taken by Samantha McLaren.
James Remar Was Thinking about Retirement before Getting the Call
Rose’s story in It: Welcome to Derry is closely connected to that of General Francis Shaw, played by James Remar. The actor, who recently reprised the role of Harry Morgan in Dexter: Resurrection, says he was considering retirement when the opportunity to join the Stephen King universe fell into his lap.
“I was in the parking lot of a Pavilions grocery store and I was thinking to myself, well, it doesn’t really matter if I don’t work anymore,” Remar recalls. “I got into the car and I got a phone call from my agent, and they said ‘Andy and Barbara Muschietti want to meet you for this undisclosed project, and they’re only meeting one actor.”
“I admired this man since I was a child,” Andy Muschietti explains. “When he said yes, I couldn’t believe it.”
Remar, who brought his own experiences growing up in the 1960s to the table, says his character was saved from Pennywise by Rose when they were kids. They fell in love and had a whirlwind romance as only 9-year-olds who have been terrorized by an ancient evil entity can, though Shaw’s psyche was “shattered” by his encounter with It. Now in charge of strategic air command for the northeastern United States, General Shaw returns to Derry on assignment and reunites with his old flame just as the cycle begins again.
“I feel that my character is drawn back to Derry,” Remar says. “It’s out of my control… I’ve forgotten it in large part, but it’s in the fabric of my being, and I go to Rose.”
We’ll See a Different Side of the Shining’s Dick Hallorann
Audiences will meet plenty of new characters in It: Welcome to Derry. But one character who is likely very familiar to Stephen King fans is Dick Hallorann, the man who would go on to become head chef at the Overlook Hotel and who would use his “shine” to help save Danny Torrance from the terrifying forces lurking within its halls. Hallorann is a central character in The Shining (played by Scatman Crothers in Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation, and by Melvin Van Peebles in Mick Garris’ 1977 miniseries) and a tertiary one in Doctor Sleep (portrayed by Carl Lumbly in Mike Flannagan’s adaptation). However, Constant Readers will know that Hallorann also has ties to Derry, where he founded The Black Spot bar, the site of a racially-motivated attack. According to Chris Chalk, the actor bringing this iconic character back to the screen in It: Welcome to Derry, the version of Hallorann we meet in the series is quite different to the older, gentler version we know and love.
“Dick is in Derry because Dick fucked up,” says Chalk. “Dick thinks all of these people are corny, he doesn’t respect a single one of them, and that’s the journey of Dick. The Dick you know is super nice. Good luck with this Dick!”
In an exclusive clip played for the NYCC audience, Hallorann—who was a mess cook in the military during his younger years—has a terrifying vision of Pennywise while flying high overhead in a U.S. Air Force plane, seeing the ruin’s of Bob Gray’s circus wagon and dead children suspended in the air in the sewer.
“You’re going to meet him at a stage where he has a different relationship with his internal self, with his spiritual world,” Chalk adds of Hallorann, “and his biggest fear is himself and losing control.”
Photo taken by Samantha McLaren.
Pennywise Is Here, but You Won’t See the Iconic Clown Right Away
We’ve been dancing around the Dancing Clown a lot in this article without looking directly at It. Don’t worry, Pennywise stans, It’s definitely part of the series—but you might not see It in Its clown form right away.
“He’s our shark,” says Barbara Muschietti, referencing Jaws’ tactic of teasing viewers with sightings before a sudden and shocking reveal. “We believe wholeheartedly that we can’t allow the audience to get comfortable with It. We had to hide the ball.”
“Part of the unpredictability is, ‘When is the clown going to show up?’” adds Andy Muschietti. “I can’t tell you when! But he will… He’s present in other incarnations for a while and then, when you least expect it, there he is.”
It: Welcome to Derry will premiere on HBO and HBO Max October 26th, 2025.
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NYCC 2025 Horror Highlights: A Sneak Peek at ‘The Lost Boys’ Musical, ‘Resident Evil: Requiem,’ and More!
As soon as New York Comic Con announced that its 2025 theme would be “haunted,” I started lacing up my comfy shoes and making a beeline for the Javitz Center! Horror has always been represented at the con, but it felt fitting that it should play a central role in this year’s event at a time when the genre seems more popular than ever.
From beloved family-friendly properties like The Nightmare Before Christmas to pants-dampening titles like the upcoming Resident Evil: Requiem, horror appeared in countless shapes and forms. Here are all the best and scariest insights I gleaned from the show floor, panel rooms, and pop-ups of New York Comic Con 2025!
Our NYCC 2025 Horror Highlights
Resident Evil: Requiem Is Going to Test Your Bladder Strength
Full disclaimer: I’m not a gamer. I’m honestly pretty bad at games, which made my Resident Evil: Requiem play session all the more frightening because I was convinced that everyone around me would realize I’m a fraud. But with easy-to-grasp controls, even for a newb like me, the latest installment in the iconic horror franchise quickly sucked me in and left me on edge for entirely different reasons.
During my 30-minute session, I was introduced to FBI analyst Grace Ashcroft, Requiem’s central character. She swims to consciousness to find herself strapped upside down on a gurney with a needle in her arm, siphoning her blood. After Grace managed to free herself, the controls were handed over to me to explore the creepy facility through Grace’s eyes, looking for a fuse. Some spaces were bathed in red light; others were lit only by flickering bulbs that left me white-knuckling the controller, waiting for something to emerge from the shadows and swallow me whole, not helped by Grace’s anxious, stuttering breathing in my ear.
I took a moment to appreciate how detailed video games have become since my childhood experiences playing Evil Dead: Hail to the King on the original PlayStation (seriously, you can see the dust drifting in beams of light now?!), only for the sound of movement somewhere in the facility to yank me back to the present. I renewed my frantic search for the fuse, only to run blindly into a pitch-black room and encounter something enormous that dragged me into the darkness. Sorry, Grace!
You can find out what happens next when Resident Evil: Requiem releases for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2 on February 27, 2026.
Megan Fox Is Among the New Cast Members in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2—And Blumhouse Hasn’t Given Up on Its Other m3gan Yet
Blumhouse made several announcements at their NYCC panel, most notably that Megan Fox (Jennifer’s Body) is voicing Toy Chica in director Emma Tammi’s highly anticipated sequel Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, coming to theaters on December 5. Other new additions to the cast include YouTuber Matthew Patrick, aka MatPat, who cameoed in the first movie and will voice Toy Bonnie, and Kellen Goff, who has voiced multiple characters in the game series and will now lend his pipes to Toy Freddy.
I’m interested in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, not least because my best friend is terrified of the franchise and makes a wildly entertaining moviegoing companion—but I’m more interested in the future of another Blumhouse franchise, M3GAN. After the sequel underperformed, likely due in part to its hard genre pivot away from horror and into action territory, the future of the killer doll is uncertain. But in a special industry presentation on “The Business of Fear,” Jason Blum revealed that “we’re all working to keep M3GAN alive,” adding that Blumhouse is exploring other potential mediums before trying to resurrect her on film.
Does that mean a M3GAN video game might come our way in the future, or perhaps a TV series? I don’t know, but I have a feeling this isn’t the last we’ve seen of the silicone diva.
Photo taken by Samantha McLaren.
The Lost Boys: A New Musical Will Feature Flying Stunts and a Live Vampire Band
My queer heart is a sucker for musical adaptations of horror films I love, so you can be certain that I’ll be heading down to the Santa Carla Boulevard—aka Broadway’s Palace Theater—for The Lost Boys: A New Musical, which begins previews on March 27, 2026. At their NYCC panel, producer Patrick Wilson (The Conjuring franchise), director Michael Arden (Maybe Happy Ending), and cast members LJ Benet, Ali Louis Bourzgui, and Maria Wirries revealed why they feel Joel Schumacher’s 1987 classic translates so well to the stage, and what audiences can look forward to.
“There’s something that I see with both horror movies, musicals, and superhero movies—there’s an element of melodrama that’s really rewarding,” says Wilson, who began his career in musical theater and worked with Schumacher on the director’s 2004 film adaptation of The Phantom of the Opera. “Some people view it as camp, but there’s a reality of it being heightened that felt like this story cemented itself so much to being a musical.”
“They’re a biker gang, after all, and there’s a level of theatricality to that in and of itself,” says Arden. “Our biker gang also happens to play instruments.”
That’s right: the vampires will be playing instruments live on stage, which made casting twice as hard. Ali Louis Bourzgui, who plays David, the character portrayed by Kiefer Sutherland in the film, reveals that he plays guitar. And that wasn’t the only unusual request in the casting call: auditions included a flying test. (Presumably wires were involved, unless Arden has found himself a real cabal of vampires in his cast.)
Other highlights that fans can look forward to include killer music from one of Arden’s favorite bands, The Rescues. You can listen to the song “Have to Have You” right now, featuring instrumentals from Slash. The director also teases that many fan-favorite moments from the film will feature in some way in the musical, including the bridge scene and, yes, even the sexy saxophone guy.
Greg Nicotero’s Guts & Glory Marks a New Challenge for a Legend of the Business
If you like looking at gnarly practical effects in horror movies, chances are you’re familiar with Greg Nicotero’s work, whether you realize it or not. The legendary SFX artist has worked on everything from George Romero’s Day of the Dead and Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II to Kill Bill and, more recently, The Walking Dead. The impressive extent of his resume was made clear at the panel “Shudder is Here to Scare the S*** Out of You,” in which almost any film mentioned by the other panelists was met by a small smile and a humble murmur of “worked on that” into the mic, often followed by a wild anecdote. Nicotero seems like the most interesting man in the world to grab a drink with, and his new horror competition show for Shudder—Guts & Glory—will let us see more of the man behind the makeup brush.
“Guts & Glory is one of the most fun times I’ve had on a show,” Nicotero says, teasing that the series is “part Sam Raimi, part Halloween Horror Nights, and part Survivor.”
In the six-episode first season, contestants are dropped into an Alabama swamp, where there’s an urban legend about an evil spirit. “One of the contestants gets possessed by the evil spirit, people start dying off, but in the meantime, they’re still competing and there’s a prize,” Nicotero explains.
Guts & Glory is effects-heavy, which was challenging to do in an unscripted series relying on real people’s real-time reactions. “You do a movie, you can cut and try it again,” Nicotero explains. “[This] was completely out of my wheelhouse and out of my comfort zone, but I’m really, really proud of it.”
Nicotero’s Creepshow was one of the first original shows to debut on Shudder, so he’s truly part of the DNA of the horror streamer, which celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. Guts & Glory premieres on October 14 as part of Shudder’s Season of Screams programming.
Horror Short The Littles Deserves the Big-Screen Feature Treatment
Some short films are perfectly suited to their bite-sized format, while others contain the seeds of something much bigger. At the New York Premiere of The Littles, a new short written and directed by American Horror Story producer Andrew Duplessie, I could immediately see the potential for the feature film that Duplessie hopes to make.
Equal parts charming and unsettling, The Littles stars M3GAN’s Violet McGraw as a little girl with a loose floorboard in her bedroom. One night, a scuffling sound and a crack of light between the boards lead the little girl to discover that her family isn’t alone in the house…
Duplessie says The Littles was inspired by his own experiences growing up in a creaky old house with a no-doubt overactive imagination. The short features creepy-cute stop-motion animation from Anthony Scott (The Nightmare Before Christmas), puppets by Katy Strutz (Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio), and some truly adorable miniature sets by Aiden Creates, all blended perfectly with the live-action scenes. Check it out if it’s playing at a festival near you, and watch this space for a (fingers-crossed) future feature!
Photo taken by Samantha McLaren.
Disney Publishing’s New The Nightmare Before Christmas Tie-in Novel Welcomes Younger Fans into the Scary Fun
NYCC’s horror happenings weren’t all geared toward an adult audience. Disney Publishing took over Daily Provisions Manhattan West for a pop-up experience inspired by The Nightmare Before Christmas, featuring themed food and drinks like a delectable Pumpkin Potion coffee that I could honestly drink all season long.
At a media and creator event in the space, I took a look at the newly released Hour of the Pumpkin Queen from New York Times best-selling author Megan Shepherd, who also wrote the official novelization of The Nightmare Before Christmas for the film’s 30th anniversary in 2023. In this new tie-in novel, Sally and her rag doll apprentice, Luna, embark on a time-bending adventure to save Jack Skellington and Halloween Town after falling through a mysterious portal.
I was gifted a copy of the book by Disney, but all opinions are my own here. I’m looking forward to giving it a read during the inevitable Halloween hangover that takes place in November, before likely passing it on to my young nieces when they’re old enough. It’s a full novel, not a picture book, so definitely geared more toward a YA audience, but between the beautiful artwork on the cover and the seasonal theme, it might just be the perfect gift for the budding horror lover in your life.
That’s a wrap on New York Comic Con 2025! Be sure to bookmark Horror Press if you haven’t already so you never miss our coverage of conventions, festivals, and more.
Horror has, once again, proven it is the greatest force of positivity in the world of art today. Duplass Brothers Productions, known for its Creep franchise, has partnered with the Transgender Film Center to create the Found Footage Feature Fund. It was unveiled at Fantastic Fest, and promises an intersection of analog terror and empowered voices.
This is a fully financed, $25,000 grant for Trans filmmakers to tell original stories. The only criteria is that films should incorporate some element of found footage, collage, or other form of experimental media within their project. Mark Duplass, along with Trans Film Center Executive Sav Rodgers, says this is an opportunity not just to support independent storytellers, but to empower Trans filmmakers. A message we can totally get behind.
This fund is a phenomenal response to an era of discrimination, battling bigotry with action, art, and creativity.. The fund will open on October 23rd and close on November 7th. The grantee will be selected in December.
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