October 2025 features the return of a $1.1 billion horror franchise from the mind of Stephen King. Stephen King movies have been a staple of the industry for decades, primarily due to the author’s prolific output of novels. Although there is an equal share of good and bad Stephen King adaptations regarding quality, most tend to be commercially successful.
The highest-grossing Stephen King movies include the likes of The Green Mile and The Dark Tower. 2025 proved a good year for adaptations of the author’s work, with The Long Walk being released to critical acclaim in September 2025.
When looking beyond that at upcoming Stephen King adaptations, October 2025 will feature the return of a huge $1.1 billion franchise. This franchise is undoubtedly the most successful based on King’s work and will finally make its anticipated return after a six-year hiatus.
Welcome To Derry Finally Brings Back The IT Franchise This Month After 6 Years
On October 26, 2025, It: Welcome to Derry begins airing on HBO Max, bringing back the highly successful It franchise. It: Welcome to Derry serves as a prequel to 2017’s It and its sequel, 2019’s It: Chapter Two. The show was created by the director of those two movies, Andy Muschietti, alongside his wife, Barbara, and fellow It: Chapter Two producer, Jason Fuchs.
Set predominantly in 1962, though stretching even further back than that, the series details the exploits of the child-killing entity known as Pennywise. Welcome to Derry‘s story is expected to delve into the origins of the entity, which appears in Derry, Maine, every 27 years, all while serving as a prequel to the two films that accumulated $1.1 billion collectively.
|
Movie |
Domestic Box Office Total |
International Box Office Total |
Worldwide Box Office Total |
|---|---|---|---|
|
It |
$328,828,874 |
$375,300,000 |
$704,128,874 |
|
It: Chapter Two |
$211,593,228 |
$261,500,000 |
$473,093,228 |
With October 2025 marking the show’s release, now is a better time than ever to watch It and It: Chapter Two. Be it for the first time or simply a rewatch, refamiliarizing yourself with the It franchise will undoubtedly be beneficial before watching It: Welcome to Derry, especially with the show expected to tie closely with the feature films.
Welcome To Derry Is The First IT TV Show In 35 Years
Aside from being a prequel to the It movies, Welcome to Derry is exciting as it is the first TV show based on Stephen King’s novel, IT, in over three decades. 35 years ago, in 1990, the first major adaptation of IT was released in the form of a miniseries, simply titled It.
The It miniseries was considered a great Stephen King adaptation, made popular by Tim Curry’s performance as the titular entity. It was released in two parts, each feature-length, though categorized as a TV miniseries. Now, 35 years later, It: Welcome to Derry is bringing the franchise back to the small screen, this time based on the 2017 movie and its sequel.
Of course, 1990’s It was an adaptation of the King novel, telling the same story as the 2017 and 2019 movies. It: Welcome to Derry differs in the fact that it is a prequel to the original book story, delving back into different time periods when Pennywise was unleashed upon the town.
Concerning why it took so long for another TV version of It to happen, though, it can be put down to the changes in storytelling in the modern era. Since the 2010s, TV shows have become increasingly more cinematic, with some having budgets that rival, and sometimes exceed, the biggest blockbuster movies.
This has allowed the quality of TV productions to drastically increase, far beyond what was capable in the 1980s and 1990s from a cinematic standpoint. This explains why it has taken more than three decades for another It TV show to happen, with Welcome to Derry‘s strong visual effects, cinematic style, and connections to the most successful horror movie of all time proving as much.
Welcome To Derry Is Bigger For Stephen King Fans Than Just The IT Franchise
The final aspect that makes It: Welcome to Derry all the more important is how it will connect to more than just the It franchise. It has been confirmed that Welcome to Derry will include references to the wider Stephen King universe. In King’s books, there is a concept known as the Macroverse, essentially a multiverse that connects several stories written by the author.
The original IT book features a cosmic entity known as Maturin the Turtle, who aids the Losers Club in their eventual defeat of Pennywise. Maturin is known to guard a Beam of the Dark Tower, a structure in a specific universe that holds all the worlds together. As revealed by Muschietti, Welcome to Derry and The Dark Tower will be connected.
Not only does this potentially hint at the appearance of Maturin the Turtle in Welcome to Derry, who was left out of the 2017 and 2019 movies, but it also teases the Stephen King live-action multiverse. Combining this with the reveal that The Shining‘s Dick Halloran will appear in Welcome to Derry, the wider King connections continue.
This is without mentioning Easter eggs to The Shawshank Redemption and The Mist, which further supports the idea that Welcome to Derry will introduce the Macroverse to live-action. What this means going beyond It: Welcome to Derry remains to be seen, but it only builds on the sense of excitement created by the franchise’s return, six years after it became a $1.1 billion hit.
- Release Date
-
October 26, 2025
- Network
-
HBO
- Directors
-
Andy Muschietti
