It: Welcome to Derry showrunners say including The Shining's Dick Hallorann in the Pennywise prequel was a no-brainer – and that Stephen King himself was more than happy to sign off.
"It was all about staying authentic to the book. We wanted to use as much of the canon as felt appropriate. We sort of put on our Mike Hanlon hat and approached this the way the character did. We became amateur Derry historians," Fuchs said at an NYCC roundtable attended by GamesRadar+. "And so, just as Mike is sitting in the attic of the library, we're sort of sitting in the writer's room going, 'OK, what pieces of these interludes in the book that suggest elements of Derry history shrouded in mystery can we start to dig into?'"
"And obviously, there's references in the original book and some of the interludes to Dick Hallorann being present at The Black Spot. And so it just felt incredibly organic to go, 'OK, that's someone who would belong in Derry at this moment. But where is his story at that point? Where is he in his journey as a character?'"
In It: Welcome to Derry, Chris Chalk plays a younger version of Hallorann, who meets Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo), Mike Hanlon's grandfather, during his time in the Air Force. In a scene shown behind closed doors at NYCC, we see Dick and Leroy have a strange interaction on an aircraft... where they are visited by none other than Pennywise (yeah, you're not even safe from him in the sky, it seems). In The Shining, Dick is played by the late Scatman Crothers. In Doctor Sleep, he's played Marvel's Carl Lumbly.
If you're unfamiliar with Hallorann's connection to It, the novel explains that Hallorann opened a bar known as The Black Spot, which catered to Black soldiers and was subsequently burned down by a white nationalist hate group. In the novel, Jallorann used his Shining ability to find and rescue survivors, one of them being Will Hanlon, father of main character Mike Hanlon (played by Chosen Jacobs in Andy Muschietti's It).
"He's very different than the Dick Hallorann we know from The Shining, or certainly from Doctor Sleep," Fuchs explains. "So it was all about finding those little nuggets buried in the text and letting story and character dictate it. So, for instance, if a character's going to get carted off to prison – I guess you'd see that in the trailer. It was suddenly a question, well, 'What's the nearest prison? Shawshank.' It made sense."
"So we were never shoehorning things in. It was all from a place of what is the most effective, dramatic choice. "And then often the answers to those questions suggested other elements of Stephen King lore and canon. But there are a lot of Easter eggs in this show. There are definitely, for Stephen King mega fan like myself, like Brad, this thing is chock full of Easter eggs, of references to a broader Stephen King universe. So I'm excited for fans to try to discover those."
"Yeah, everything he said," Kane says. "The fun thing about working in TV as opposed to film is you can delve much more deeply into character. And the fun thing about taking a character like Dick Hallorann from The Shining [or] the Dick Hallorann that we're familiar with from Shining from Doctor Sleep – He's much more of a mentor character. He exists much more in service of Danny Torrance's journey through the Overlook."
It's worth mentioning that It boasts a page count of 1,181, depending on which edition you're reading. You'll find the history of Derry tucked away in the book's interludes, which contain all of Mike's extremely careful and in-depth research. So while there are a plethora of new characters written just for the show, Fuchs and Kane were careful to build the prequel from the book before expanding into brand new territory.
Welcome to Derry was developed by Andy Muschietti, who directed It and It: Chapter Two, and his producing partner Barbara, as well as Fuchs. The first season takes place in 1962, with a planned second and third taking place in 1935 and 1908, respectively.
"In our show, Dick Hallorann is in service of nothing but himself. He's a much more selfish guy," Kane explains. "I guess he's in service to General Shaw and the overarching plan of the show, but he's looking to just do that: get out from under people's thumbs and live his life. He is a good time guy. He doesn't love kids like he does in The Shining. He's not interested. But we were able to take him from that character that we don't know, this younger character who is nothing like [his character in] The Shining, to a character that you recognize much more by the end. We gave him a full arc.
"I feel like we made him an even more three-dimensional, rounded character under the watchful eye of Uncle Stevie himself. He had to approve every outline, every script, make sure we're not telling tales out of school here. All with Stephen King's approval. But we were able to really build out his character in a way that I don't think we've seen before. And that was exciting to hear."
It: Welcome to Derry is airing now on HBO Max. For more, check out our It: Welcome to Derry release schedule, or, check out our guide to all of the upcoming Stephen King movies and shows you need to know about.
