Pennywise has left Derry and invaded a number of major cities in anticipation of the new “It” series on HBO.
On Wednesday, mysterious red balloons began popping up in cities around the world alongside Pennywise the Dancing Clown as “It: Welcome to Derry” nears its premiere on Sunday, Oct. 26. Cities on the list for this Red Balloon Takeover promo include: New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, São Paulo & Rio de Janeiro, Madrid, Paris, Singapore, Manila, Sydney, Cappadocia, Warsaw, Santiago de Chile, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Dubai.
The red balloon, an iconic symbol for the terrifying clown, appears in both the 2017 remake and 2019 sequel. Bill Skarsgärd returns to the role for the HBO series playing the iconic Stephen King villain.
The new series expands on the novel adaptations from 2017 and 2019, and takes place in the 1960s, during Pennywise’s reign of terror in his 27 year cycle right before the Loser’s Club first fought the monster in “It: Chapter One.” Part of the first season will explore the horrors faced by OG Losers Club member Mike Hanlon’s dad and grandfather.
At the show’s premiere, showrunners Jason Fuchs and Brad Caleb Kane explained to TheWrap that the responsibility of expanding the films was as terrifying as any King book they’ve read.
“Having a property like this in your hands, as a Stephen King megafan, is as scary as anything I’ve ever read in a Stephen King book. It’s terrifying, because you care about it so much and you want to do right; not just by him and the fans, but by yourself,” co-showrunner/writer Fuchs told TheWrap. “I have such high expectations about what a story in this world can be, and Andy and Barbara set the bar so extraordinarily high with those films, so it’s quite scary but also exhilarating. We have the opportunity to do something really meaningful.”
“It’s always been a lot of fun and ‘It’ has lived in our hearts for a long time, since we read it when we were teenagers … It’s challenging, but exciting. We draw from our passion,” Andy Muschietti – who serves as EP on the show and directed the two films – shared, while Barbara Muschietti continued, “We revere the books, so it’s not really a responsibility because we are possibly the biggest fans of the book.”
“It: Welcome to Derry” premieres on HBO Sunday, Oct. 26.
