What time will IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 be released on HBO Max? Global release timings explored

Based on Stephen King’s novel, HBO’s highly anticipated show, IT: Welcome to Derry, season 1, is now almost halfway through its first season. This show incorporates all the small but important details featured in the IT movies and takes us back into Pennywise’s history. It explores the time before the Losers’ Club, showing how Pennywise first came to Derry and how the town gradually became his haunted playground. 

Feeding on fear and haunting kids disguised in various forms, this season, the child actors are Matilda Lawler as Marge Truman, Amanda Christine as Ronnie Grogan, Clara Stack as Lilly Bainbridge, Blake Cameron James as Will Hanlon, Arian S. Cartaya as Rich Santos, Miles Ekhardt as Matty Clements, among others. 

The show premieres its first episode on October 26, 2025, and with that, it starts to follow a weekly release schedule, bringing Pennysiwse’s terror to the screen every Sunday on HBO and HBO Max. 

Global timings of IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 explored

New episodes of IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 drop on HBO and HBO Max simultaneously. It is so that viewers can watch it on TV or stream it according to their convenience. But the platforms and timings change depending on the country. Global release timings are mentioned in the table below. 

What is IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 all about?

IT: Welcome to Derry season 1 is a prequel series set roughly 27 years before the events of the IT movies. The story begins in 1962 when a young boy named Matty mysteriously disappears in the small town of Derry, Maine. Strange and terrifying events begin to unfold, revealing that the town is being haunted by an ancient evil: Pennywise the Dancing Clown. The series shows how Pennywise first arrived in Derry and feeds on fear, terrorising children. 

It also connects to the IT movies by exploring the ancestors of characters from the Losers’ Club, such as Major Leroy Hanlon, who is the grandfather of Mike Hanlon. Beyond just horror, the show adds layers of history, social tensions, and secrets within the town, including the presence of a military base and hidden missions tied to the supernatural. It also hints at connections to Stephen King’s wider universe, with subtle references to other King stories like The Shining. 

For fans of the movies, it offers a rich backstory and a deeper understanding of Pennywise’s reign of terror, while new viewers can enjoy it as a standalone horror drama that blends suspense, mystery, and supernatural elements. By expanding the lore, showing the origins of evil in Derry, and introducing new storylines, IT: Welcome to Derry adds both depth and fresh twists to the IT universe. 

What has happened so far in IT: Welcome to Derry season 1? 

So far, the show has revealed that a fallen star brought an evil spirit to the town. The ancestors believed that this caused “the Galoo” to escape, and to stop it from terrorising people, they created magical daggers or shards and buried them underground, making a cage to trap the creature and keep it away from escaping the forest.

In the present timeline, the military base led by General Frank wants to use evil as a weapon. They are trying to find the shards underground to shrink the cage. In the previous episode, Taniel gives the wrong directions, which leads them to the iconic Well House on Neibolt Street, where Pennywise’s sewer lies underneath. The military is attacked, and even Halloran’s “shining” powers are not enough to stop the chaos. Pennywise makes him open the metal box that holds trapped negative and evil spirits from his mind, and now they are released as he witnesses Pauly’s ghost lurking in the woods.

Meanwhile, the kids are trying to prove that Ronnie’s father is not guilty of the theatre massacre, which Pennywise caused while taking the form of a two-headed baby. They also entered the sewers, and Lily managed to get one of the magical daggers that Rose gave to Taniel.