Pennywise is coming back. HBO has officially renewed It: Welcome to Derry for a second season, nearly a year after the first season premiered last October. As we have been reporting for some time, the renewal had long been expected but took longer than anticipated as the creative team worked out the direction for the new chapter from scratch.
Season 2 will go even further back in time, moving from Season 1’s 1962 setting to 1935 and the Great Depression. The season centers on the bloody massacre of the Bradley Gang, a group of bank robbers who stop in Derry to buy ammo and end up facing unimaginable horror. The Bradley Gang Massacre is one of the key interludes in Stephen King’s original novel and has long been one of the most anticipated chapters for fans of the source material.
The shift in era also means a shift in tone. Creator Andy Muschietti described the aesthetic of Season 2 as starkly different from the first. “On the surface, Derry is a graveyard almost. It’s a carcass of something because people are depleted, poor, tired, jobless, homeless,” he told Variety. “The kids don’t have a suburban, comforting life. They’re in a very different situation. Some of them are orphans or runaways, and so the environment is pretty bleak. But there’s always the aspect of hope that is always there, burning.”
Behind the scenes, Brad Caleb Kane takes over as sole showrunner after co-showrunning Season 1 with Jason Fuchs. Andy and Barbara Muschietti return as executive producers under their Double Dream banner alongside Kane, Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Jamie Travis and Dhana Gilbert.
One notable question heading into Season 2 is casting. Because the series is structured as an anthology, moving across different eras of Derry’s history, it is unlikely the Season 1 cast will return in the same roles given the 1935 setting. No casting has been announced yet. Bill Skarsgård, who has played Pennywise across the Muschietti films and the first season, is expected to continue in the role.
Season 1, which premiered October 2025, ranked among the top four series premieres globally in HBO Max history and earned strong critical and audience scores. Muschietti has previously spoken about a three-season plan for Welcome to Derry that would include an additional chapter set in 1908.
It: Welcome to Derry Season 2 is produced by HBO and Warner Bros. Television.