The series ‘It: Welcome to Derry’, coming to HBO on October 26, “solves enigmas” that are still pending from Stephen King’s books and “opens up new questions”, as its directors, the Argentinean brothers Andy and Bárbara Muschietti, announced this Friday at the Sitges Film Festival.
“The series is an exploration within the great mysteries that the book has, which is something gigantic, full of enigmas,” Andy Muschietti revealed about a work that aims to be the prequel to ‘It’ (2017) and ‘It: Chapter Two’ (2019), directed by himself.
Thus, one of his purposes is to “solve those enigmas and open new questions”, something he does by telling “the story backwards” from “the interludes of Mike Hanlon’s annotations, who is the loser who stays in the town of Derry”.
In addition, Muschietti assured that “there is a kind of divergence from the book”, so that although the series draws on the great events of the novel, “the great act goes towards a path that is perhaps unexpected for readers, because it is a new story”.
As for the germinal idea of the project, the brothers stressed that their question was “how does It become the clown?”, something that King deals with “in such a cryptic way” that it led them to investigate further.
IT: Welcome to Derry’ series to feature macabre episodes
For her part, Bárbara Muschietti assured that they are “fortunate” to be able to work with Stephen King, who “has an enormous eye for his work”.
“King approaches the reading of the episodes more like a fan than a critic trying to stick to his work,” added the producer. He wrote ‘It’ 40 years ago, he loves it, and he emails us and explains how he enjoys the series.
Likewise, Bárbara Muschietti insisted that “it is an incredibly current book, now more than in 2017. When she wrote it, it was prophetic”.
As for an audiovisual denouement on a par with the novel, in which the town of Derry is flooded, the brothers joked that they would have to invest a large part of the play’s budget in that scene alone.
“With the second film I wanted more ‘feedback’ from King, so he made me a list of things he wanted to see. Among others, he wanted the water tower rolling down the hill for the big final flood,” Andy Muschietti detailed.
“If we shoot it like the book, it eats up half the budget. In the end you have to make those decisions and you’re getting rid of the less essential things. It was a big prohibitive ending, someday maybe there will be a version,” the director continued.
The 58th Sitges Film Festival will be held from October 9 to 19 in this northeastern Spanish town. It was inaugurated with French filmmaker Julia Ducournau and her pandemic ‘Alpha’ and its program includes films such as ‘Vieja loca’, by Argentine Martín Mauregui, and ‘About a Hero’, by Piotr Winiewicz, reported Agencia EFE.
Here you can watch the trailer for the series ‘IT: Welcome to Derry’.
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