Welcome to Derry season 2 will likely have an all-new cast

So, It: Welcome to Derry is definitely sticking around for another round – Season 2 is a go on HBO Max. If you were expecting the original lot to return for more 60s horror nostalgia, that's not on the cards this time. The series is jumping way back, and they're making some hefty changes both in front of and behind the camera.

Season two of It: Welcome to Derry unfolds in 1935, right in the thick of the Great Depression, so the first season's cast wouldn't even be born yet.

Who's Actually Coming Back?

The only familiar face – or rather, the only familiar sinister, shapeshifting presence – is Bill Skarsgård, who’s once again putting on the makeup (and presumably the teeth) as Pennywise. As for everyone else? It’s probably a full house clear-out. The timeline is leaping thirty years into the past, all the way to 1935. None of the original characters would realistically be about, so they're scrapping the old cast and teeing up a new set of victims – sorry, characters.

What’s Season 2 Actually Doing?

This time the show’s setting its sights on one of Derry’s more notorious chapters: the massacre of the Bradley Gang. Apparently, these bank robbers dropped into town to score some ammunition and ended up running afoul of horrors far beyond what they’d prepared for. The official summary for Season 2 spells out the bleak tone: dark-decade America, criminals on the run, cosmic evil – you get the idea.

• Season 2 is set in 1935, right during the Great Depression.
• The focus is on the bloody end of the Bradley Gang.
• Pennywise (Skarsgård) is the only character carrying over.
• Everyone else is going to be new, both cast and characters.

As for who’s in charge of this new era, Brad Caleb Kane takes over as showrunner. He was already on board in the first series (which was developed by Jason Fuchs and Kane), but now he’s got the lead steering job. Barbara and Andy Muschietti – yes, the same ones from the IT films – are still involved as executive producers with their Double Dream company, joined by Kane, Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Jamie Travis, and Dhana Gilbert. Production-wise, nothing changes: it’s still HBO Max and Warner Bros. Television behind it all.

Warner Bros. are very much aware that the time jump is going to shake things up. In the press release about the show’s renewal, Clancy Collins White (overseeing creative at Warner Bros. TV) hammered home the whole old-time horror angle, saying:

We know It: Welcome to Derry will continue to captivate viewers with its spine-tingling new journey into the 1930s for Season 2.

The first season, for what it's worth, did a straightforward eight-episode run and is up on HBO Max for anyone playing catch-up. No word yet on when Season 2 lands or who will fill out the new cast list. For now, all we know is Pennywise will still be lurking in the sewers, but virtually everyone else is starting from scratch.