With the recently released It: Welcome to Derry series expanding upon the extensive lore of the It franchise, the show’s creators have explained how the prequel show explores the mythology of the Stephen King classic despite having little to no source material. In a recent interview, Andy Muschietti, who co-developed the series along with Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, noted that with It: Welcome to Derry, they’re actually introducing relevant nuances to fine-tune King’s horror classic under the author’s supervision.

Andy Muschietti says they’re completing the It ‘puzzle’ with Welcome to Derry series

During a recent conversation, The Flash director said that even though the events of It: Welcome to Derry do not exist in the original It book, they simply add more context to the expansive world created by Stephen King.

“For the first time, we’re filling the spaces. We’re creating events that are not in the book in order to complete the puzzle that was intentionally unfinished by Stephen King,” Andy Muschietti told Parade.

Co-creator Jason Fuchs echoed Muschietti’s sentiments by saying, “In some ways, It: Chapter Two was pure adaptation. With Welcome to Derry, we’re looking at a map that’s partially constructed, but with many blank spaces. The challenge was filling those spaces in a way that felt authentic to King’s tone and themes. It was invention, but always in service of what he created.”

Talking about how they planned to go about this expansion, Brad Caleb Kane, who serves as the co-showrunner of the series alongside Fuchs, noted, “We wanted to respect the themes of the book. The weaponization of fear. Fear being used as a tool to divide, to conquer, to gain power. The end of innocence. Growing up and learning to confront your fears and your traumas. We wanted to start there and extrapolate from there.”

Despite Kane and Fuchs treading uncharted territory in the It universe with Welcome to Derry, Stephen King has kept a “watchful eye” over every addition. “He looked at everything, every story outline, every script. Occasionally, he would give a note, and if Uncle Stevie gives a note, you take it. It inevitably made the story better,” confirmed Kane.

It: Welcome to Derry has already released its premiere episode. The second chapter will come out on October 31 on HBO Max and on November 2 on HBO. Meanwhile, the remaining six episodes of the prequel series will come out every other Sunday. Moreover, the finale is scheduled for a December 14 release.

Originally reported by Apoorv Rastogi on SuperHeroHype.