Coming as no surprise, the horror series It: Welcome to Derry, which acts as a prequel to recent IT movies, has been renewed for a second season. That series premiered in Fall 2025 and spent three weeks in the Nielsen Streaming Rankings for acquired shows, averaging 654 million minutes of digital viewing on HBO Max over that period. And according to the premium cable channel, the show averaged 20 million viewers per week across all of its platforms, including encore runs of new episodes. The showrunners already claimed to be working on the second season, with a third in the works as well, and an entry for Season 2 appeared in the Production Weekly listings all the way back in August 2025. The first season of that show takes place in 1962, with the second going back to 1935 and the third to 1908 as they explore the history of Derry and the 27-year cycle of Pennywise’s return. Co-creator and exectuive producer Andy Muschietti had the following to say about the upcoming season:
There’s gonna be a lot of that depression-era hustling in the air in our characters. Everybody’s trying to get by and survive the circumstances. They are gonna do crazy things. And of course, the social, cultural, horrible things that were happening in the era, too. We’re not going to skip those. [They are the] very center and the heart of our story.
Because it takes place in the past, the second season will likely have an all-new cast with the exception of Bill Skarsgård returning as Pennywise, though no official cast announcements have been made yet. Since work already has already begun on this, the series could return by mid-2027.
This renewal counts back to the 2025-26 season which just ended and brings the Cancellation/Renewal Score to 37 renewed sci fi and fantasy entries (52% of shows tracked) vs. 15 cancelled and ending (21%) with 19 still waiting for word on their fates. You can see the breakdown of the numbers and the full list of shows for the current and prior seasons on our Cancellation Watch Page.
It: Welcome to Derry is a prequel to Stephen King’s IT, set in 1962 in the seemingly quiet town of Derry, Maine. As a new family settles into the area, children begin disappearing and increasingly disturbing events reveal the supernatural evil lurking beneath Derry’s surface. The first season cast includes Jovan Adepo, Taylour Paige, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe, and Bill Skarsgård.
The 2025-26 season has come to an end, but there are still quite a few shows waiting for word on their fates. Be sure to stay tuned to CancelledSciFi.com and our social media sites for the latest updates on all the current sci-fi and fantasy shows.
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