It: Welcome to Derry made us wait until episode 5, "29 Neibolt Street," to see Bill Skarsgård's Pennywise the Clown in all his horrible glory. While It has taken on many other horrifying forms since the HBO series started, Pennywise is very much the main event in the eyes of horror fans.
Now that he's been unleashed with three episodes still to go, the hope is that we'll see plenty more of Pennywise in the coming weeks. Talking to Entertainment Weekly, executive producer Barbara Muschietti addressed the decision to delay the Clown's appearance.
"We decided that, in this season, Pennywise should be a little bit like the shark in Jaws," she explained. "You really want to be strategic. In both movies, it was very important for us to keep the mystery and the fear for this character alive. We find that familiarity is the enemy of that. So it was important for us to delay the pleasure, or the terror, as much as we could."
Director Andy Muschietti called it "a game of anticipation" to "get people in that state of, 'I need to see the clown! Where is it?!' That's what we would've liked as an audience. It's a bit of a slow burn."
Showrunner Jason Fuchs concurred, explaining that television is the perfect medium to see Pennywise in different forms and to "explore the other ways It is gonna torment these kids."
Many fans were shocked that Pennywise the Clown was completely absent from It: Welcome to Derry's pilot; instead, It takes on the form of a demon-like baby that's been deformed and transformed by nuclear waste.
Addressing that, Fuchs said, "We went back and forth. We always knew this was not gonna be front and center in the first scene of the pilot in the way that It 1 opens with the introduction to Georgie and Pennywise. But a huge part of the creative process was, 'When do we introduce this character in the context of this story?' It really was a function, ultimately, of the story and the characters dictating it."
Looking ahead, the showrunner added that Skarsgård's "performance goes to some unexpected places" and said the actor "has opportunities with this character that the story of the films did not present. Not only are you getting a really, hopefully, thrilling build-up to seeing Pennywise, you are also gonna see Bill doing things you've not seen him do in this character yet."
Set in the world of Stephen King's It universe, It: Welcome to Derry is based on King's It novel and expands the vision established by filmmaker Andy Muschietti in the feature films It and It Chapter Two.
The cast is led by Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, Rudy Mancuso, and Bill Skarsgård.
The series, from Warner Bros. Television and developed for television by filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti (It, The Flash) and Jason Fuchs (Wonder Woman), will debut on HBO and also be available to stream on HBO Max. Muschietti will direct four episodes of the nine-episode series.
Five episodes of It: Welcome to Derry are now streaming on HBO Max, with new episodes released weekly leading up to the season finale on December 14.