Is It: Welcome to Derry secretly a prequel to The Shining?

It: Welcome to Derry will explore the origins of Pennywise the Clown (Bill Skarsgård) in the 1960s and beyond, but is it secretly a prequel to The Shining?

The horror series takes place in 1962, 27 years before the events of 2017’s IT and the 2019 sequel IT: Chapter Two, and will chart the bloody history of Derry, Maine as a way of examining what It/Pennywise really is and how it shaped the entire town.

A recent trailer for the HBO series had fans theorizing that it’ll adapt some truly horrific moments from Stephen King’s original horror novel. If it’s successful enough for further seasons, It: Welcome to Derry will roll the clock back another 27 years to look at other times that Pennywise surfaced in the past.

It: Welcome to Derry takes place within King’s universe, and as such it has references to other stories he wrote, but it might secretly be a prequel to another horror classic: The Shining.

It: Welcome to Derry focuses on a key character from The Shining

While audiences will be most excited to see Pennywise and the horrors that he has in store for a new group children, it will also focus on a key character from The Shining: Dick Hallorann.

Horror fans will remember Hallorann from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining movie, where he was played by Scatman Crothers, and the character also appeared in 2019’s Doctor Sleep, played by Carl Lumbly. In those films, he was the chef at the Overlook Hotel who had telepathic abilities, much like Danny Torrance.

Actor Chris Chalk will play the younger version of Hallorann in IT: Welcome to Derry. The character founded the Black Spot, a bar started by Black soldiers from the nearby airbase, and he was around when it was burnt down by a racist cult.

“The beauty of Dick Hallorann is he is not gonna die in this [show] because he’s got to get to the Overlook,” Chalk told Entertainment Weekly. “We already know who he is as an older man, where the shine is more controlled. No one knows this dude at this reference point. I got to create what I thought he was based on what was written.”

His telepathic abilities will play a part in the new series, as Chalk says Hallorann struggles with the weight of it. “Dick will eviscerate anybody to get what he needs at this stage of his life. Not a lot of connections, not a lot of concern for anyone, children included. Just doesn’t care.

“It’s the time period. It’s already oppressive enough for Black people, so then a Black dude who can read everybody’s mind and see terrible things, forget about it! He’s really made his world very, very, very small.”