Convergence culture, a concept worked on by communications researcher Henry Jenkins, has arrived in Derry. Between child massacres, hauntings of deeper fears and a cosmic entity embodied in a 20th century clown, the return of the mythology of “It: The Thing” proved to be a melting pot of references that mobilized the fandom in a way only seen with such momentum in Marvel titles.
The first season of the series “It: Welcome to Derry” ended last Sunday (14). There have been eight episodes with a steady increase in viewership and peaks of 60% more viewers each week, according to Nielsen measurement data. That’s around 6 million viewers for the final chapters, an impressive mark for a program that was delayed by the writers’ strike and had to walk away from a poorly received film in 2019 that had much less impact than the first part, from 2017.
“It”, directed by Argentinian Andy Muschietti, was a real phenomenon eight years ago. With $719 million in box office receipts, it remains the highest-grossing adult horror film in history. The second part, on the other hand, generated “only” $473 million, a very significant difference. So it’s not as if “Welcome to Derry” was a guaranteed bet for Warner, even if the studio had brought back the same creative team from the films, with brothers Andy and Barbara Muschietti at the helm.
Marketed as a “prequel” to the films and inspired by more digressive extracts from King’s novel, the series reignited fans’ passion from its premiere, as it was practically a remake of the first film set in 1962. Even some of the camera movements were similar, as was the charisma of the central group of children investigating the disappearances of little Derry, Maine.
But the outcome of the pilot, with the very violent deaths of many of the children in the cast, alerted viewers to the fact that things could be unpredictable throughout the season. It wasn’t even much, but the Muschiettis supported a plot involving the core children, military personnel searching for the Thing in light of the Cold War, the origin of the entity and its relationship to the original peoples and even the insertion of paranormal Dick Hallorann, a character from another King book, “The Shining.”
The most anticipated presence in the series was reserved for episode 5 and beyond. Swedish actor Bill Skarsgård, who played the clown Pennywise in both films, reprises the role with even more madness, sarcasm and truculence. In addition to featuring him as powerful or even more powerful than in the feature films, the series also showed the human version of the character, before his body and mind were taken over by the Thing. This gave Skarsgård the opportunity to also show his talent as a widowed and depressed clown who just wants to work and take care of his daughter in a traveling circus who is a bit of a vagabond in 1908.
This entire scenario was created over the course of the episodes in direct relation to the films and gave rise to theories and hypotheses on the networks as rarely happens in more niche and less prestigious series – such as for example a “Pluribus” of life. The somewhat exaggerated use of computer graphics in the horror scenes and some forced story moves didn’t do much to place “Welcome to Derry” on the level of the “golden age” of television or streaming, but ironically, that was one of its qualities.
After all, 2017’s “It – A Coisa” was a prime example of the best Hollywood can offer in mall horror, the closest it comes to experiencing fear and tension and the furthest removed from the supposed seriousness sometimes required for the genre to be taken seriously. For two months, “Welcome to Derry” was a mix of visual mayhem and reflections on childhood, sacrifice, broken promises and resilience that served the Muschiettis’ goals and certainly the audience’s desires very well.
If not only that, especially the final episode brought several details directly related to the films and the novel “It”, and to other creations of Stephen King, from “Carrie the Stranger” to “The Fog”. All of this generated the catharsis that fans of this more commercial and engaging type of horror have long deserved.
Shared universes aren’t just made up of superheroes: they can also be inhabited by intergalactic clowns who travel through the past, present and future, insisting not to die. And whether the other two planned seasons will get the green light, which audiences are indicating, will depend on Warner’s confusing sale, still in progress.
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