Welcome to Derry’s Pennywise Change Risks Ruining Stephen King’s Villain

While Welcome to Derry’s Pennywise backstory could be intriguing, the IT prequel risks ruining one of Stephen King’s most iconic villains thanks to its focus on the character. Director Andy Muschietti’s IT was a major hit in 2017. An adaptation of King’s infamously lengthy bestseller of the same name, the movie follows the Losers Club, a group of lovable young outcasts who successfully defeat an ageless evil known as Pennywise. However, 2017’s IT only adapted half of the source novel’s sprawling story. IT: Chapter Two picks up the plot 27 years later, and that 2019 sequel proved a lot less popular.

Now, the upcoming show Welcome to Derry promises to expand the IT universe with a prequel set in the 1960s. This is a risky proposition since viewers already know how the story of Derry’s resident monster eventually ends, but this is not the only issue standing in the way of the prequel’s success. In the source novel, Pennywise’s trippy backstory involves Maturin the Turtle, the creation of the universe, and the colonial conquest of America, but the movie adaptations understandably trimmed these in-depth origins. As such, Welcome to Derry could ironically hurt Pennywise’s reputation, regardless of whether the show focuses on the monster or his earlier victims.

Welcome To Derry Centers On Pennywise

The prequel’s focus on Pennywise will make it tough to set up a hero.

It will be tricky for the IT prequel series to focus on Pennywise since the villain’s original actor Bill Skarsgard won’t be returning in Welcome to Derry, but this isn’t the only problem with this approach. Pennywise is an ancient entity that has existed since time immemorial, so the evil monster is unlikely to be the show’s protagonist. It is more likely that Welcome to Derry will be told from the POV of his earlier victims, with their storylines explaining more of Pennywise’s backstory and his modus operandi by proxy. The problem is, Welcome to Derry can’t have a Losers Club equivalent because the Losers actually beat Pennywise.

Pennywise will unavoidably become the focus of Welcome to Derry since none of his victims from the ‘60s can end up defeating him for good. If the series focuses on a predecessor to the Losers Club, their story is guaranteed to end in failure. However, if the prequel prioritizes Pennywise over his victims, the show will leave viewers with no one to root for. While Welcome to Derry’s connection to Stephen King’s other stories means that the show can offer a lot of Easter eggs for hardcore fans of the author, the central characters of the prequel are almost guaranteed to be an issue for the show.

IT’s Pennywise Backstory Never Worked

IT: Chapter Two’s attempts to flesh out Pennywise’s origins made no sense.

Welcome to Derry can’t focus primarily on Pennywise because the character has no arc thanks to his one-note villainy. However, even if Welcome to Derry uses Pennywise’s earlier victims to illustrate more of the monster’s backstory, the IT movies already proved that the villain’s origins don’t work onscreen. The scenes that attempt to explain what or who Pennywise is in IT: Chapter Two, from the Bob Grey flashback to the Ritual of Chud to the infamous ending, were its worst moments. Pennywise’s true nature is confusing and contradictory. This isn’t an issue when he’s portrayed as a force of nature, but it is when he is the project’s main draw.

The ‘60s setting of Welcome to Derry allows the series to show how Pennywise took advantage of social ills like racism, much like IT: Chapter Two’s opening scene saw the monster use homophobic hate crimes to strengthen himself. However, this causes another issue for the prequel. IT: Chapter Two’s hate crime scene garnered criticism for its tonal inconsistency, with the comedic relief of later scenes jarring in comparison to this appalling brutality. This would be even worse in Welcome to Derry considering how bad the titular setting’s racism was, with Mike Hanlon’s parents dying in a fire that the town dismissed due to their race.

Welcome To Derry’s Story Is Inherently Bleak

Knowing that Pennywise won’t be defeated makes the prequel’s plot a grim one

If the show doesn’t prioritize Pennywise over his victims, it will still be a story that ends in inevitable failure for the heroes, and more than likely, their death. Even if Bill Skarsgard eventually returns, that series sounds like no fun to watch. Welcome to Derry would also lose the nostalgia of the ‘80s setting of the IT movies, depriving the series of another selling point that made the 2017 adaptation so popular. While there could be an earlier Losers Club that loses their lives to Pennywise, focusing on the humans behind an earlier, less successful fight against Pennywise is bound to be depressing.

Welcome to Derry’s story is inherently bleak, an issue that IT’s source material already suffered with. However, the IT movies managed to balance this with sweet moments shared by the members of the Losers Club. This wouldn’t work in the prequel, since any new characters are guaranteed to eventually be killed or at least be run out of the titular town by the villain. As such, it is hard to see how Welcome to Derry’s IT backstory could avoid making the Stephen King spinoff hopelessly grim.