HBO’s IT: Welcome to Derry wrapped its first season in mid-December 2025 with massive viewership numbers and a finale that left fans craving more Pennywise.
The series became the third most-watched debut in HBO Max history, trailing only The Last of Us and House of the Dragon with 5.7 million viewers in its first three days. The season finale pulled 6.5 million viewers, marking a 12% jump from the penultimate episode and cementing the show as one of 2025’s horror wins.
Despite the strong performance, HBO hasn’t officially greenlit Season 2 yet. But creators Andy and Barbara Muschietti aren’t sitting idle, they’ve been vocal about their three-season roadmap since before the show even premiered, and their plans for what comes next are already mapped out in detail.
The backward timeline and 1935’s bradley gang massacre
Andy Muschietti told Variety back in October that the series follows a reverse chronological structure tied to Pennywise’s 27-year cycles.
Season 1 covered 1962 and the Black Spot fire, Season 2 would jump back to 1935 during the Great Depression, and Season 3 would land in 1908.
The 1935 timeline centers on the Bradley Gang massacre, a bloody shootout from Stephen King’s novel that involves the entire town of Derry and, naturally, a certain dancing clown stirring chaos behind the scenes.
The Season 1 finale hinted heavily at why this backward approach matters. Pennywise experiences time non-linearly, meaning past and future blur together for the entity.
“Our first pitch to Stephen King was to tell the story backward“, Andy explained. “It has to do with how Pennywise experiences time in a non-linear way“.
The finale’s epilogue, featuring Sophia Lillis reprising her role as Beverly Marsh and a surprise cameo from Finn Wolfhard’s Richie Tozier, connected dots between timelines and set up the framework for deeper mythology dives in future seasons.
Season 2 would also bring back Ingrid Kersh, Bob Gray’s daughter who became obsessed with summoning Pennywise throughout Season 1.
Flashbacks already showed her working at Juniper Hill Asylum in 1935, encountering the entity and believing her father had returned. Tyner Rushing, who played the younger Ingrid in those sequences, would likely return for a more prominent role.
The renewal limbo and what’s holding things up
So why hasn’t HBO pulled the trigger on an official renewal? Barbara Muschietti addressed this directly in a December interview with ScreenRant, calling IT: Welcome to Derry “not a cheap show” and acknowledging there’s “a very high bar” for HBO to consider moving forward.
She added, “No one takes this lightly, that’s for sure. But, of course, we really want to do it. Stephen King wants to do it too, and HBO wants to do it, I’m sure. But it’s still a question we have yet to answer.”
The show’s production budget is massive, VFX-heavy horror set in period-accurate 1960s required serious money, and recreating 1935 would demand even more for new sets, costumes, and historical accuracy. Warner Bros.
Discovery is reportedly crunching numbers, weighing the costs against the show’s proven audience pull. Andy Muschietti mentioned in January that Warner Bros. was “very interested in making the second season as soon as possible,” but official word from the network remains absent as we head into 2026.
Fans have expressed frustration online, especially since both The Last of Us and House of the Dragon, the only two HBO Max debuts that outperformed Welcome to Derry—got swift renewals.
The delay feels odd given the show averaged 10.7 million viewers per episode globally, with a 60% audience increase across episodes. Those are renewal-worthy numbers by any metric.
If Season 2 does get the greenlight, don’t expect it anytime soon. Production for Season 1 began in May 2023, paused due to the Hollywood strikes, and didn’t wrap until August 2024.
A similar timeline for Season 2 would put filming around mid-2026 at the earliest, meaning a potential Halloween 2027 release if everything aligns. Barbara Muschietti told fans on Reddit, “Not the intention, I swear! Talk to HBO“, when asked about long waits between seasons, suggesting the creative team is ready to move fast if given the chance.
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