IT: Welcome to Derry Renewed for Season 2 — 1935 and the Bradley Gang Massacre Explained

HBO has officially renewed IT: Welcome to Derry for Season 2, and the show is moving another 27 years into Derry’s past.

The new season takes place in 1935 during the Great Depression and centers on the Bradley Gang Massacre, one of the historical disasters described in Stephen King’s IT. Brad Caleb Kane, who co-showran Season 1 with Jason Fuchs, will run Season 2 on his own.

HBO announced the renewal on August 17. The network’s official logline says the Bradley Gang are bank robbers who stop in Derry to buy ammunition and end up facing “unimaginable horror.”

That is enough to confirm the setting and the central historical event. A release date, episode count and Season 2 cast have not been announced.

What is the Bradley Gang Massacre?

The Bradley Gang story comes from one of Mike Hanlon’s historical interludes in King’s novel.

In the book, the gang hides around Derry after a series of crimes in the Midwest. When its members go into town to collect ammunition, locals are waiting for them. The result is a public ambush in which the gang is wiped out.

Norbert Keene later recounts the event to Mike Hanlon and remembers something that makes the massacre more than a piece of Depression-era crime history: a clown was there.

King’s novel places the massacre in 1929. HBO’s version moves it to 1935, keeping it 27 years before the show’s first-season setting in 1962.

Season 1 had already planted the idea. Episode 2 includes the discovery of a buried car connected to the gang, and the massacre is also referenced in the show’s opening imagery.

Season 2 will look very different from 1962

Andy Muschietti had been discussing the 1935 setting before HBO formally announced the renewal.

Speaking to Variety earlier this month, he said the writers’ room was already working and described a Derry shaped by the Great Depression: poorer, harsher and less protected by the suburban comfort seen in Season 1.

That makes the time jump more than a costume change.

Season 1 used Cold War-era 1962 as its backdrop. Season 2 can use unemployment, poverty and the social conditions of the 1930s as part of the environment surrounding Derry’s supernatural violence.

The Bradley Gang Massacre gives the season a ready-made collision between human brutality and whatever Pennywise is doing beneath the town.

Is Bill Skarsgård returning as Pennywise?

Not officially — at least not yet.

Skarsgård played Pennywise in Season 1 and also served as an executive producer, but HBO’s Season 2 renewal did not announce a cast.

That means his return should not be treated as confirmed until HBO, Warner Bros. Television or another reliable source says so.

The same applies to the rest of the cast. No Season 2 lineup has been announced.

Given the 27-year jump backward, the new season is also expected to introduce a substantially different group of characters rather than simply continuing the 1962 story with the same ensemble.

Brad Caleb Kane takes over as sole showrunner

There is one confirmed behind-the-scenes change.

Brad Caleb Kane will serve as Season 2 showrunner. He shared showrunning duties with Jason Fuchs on Season 1.

Andy and Barbara Muschietti remain executive producers through Double Dream, alongside Kane, Roy Lee, Dan Lin, Jamie Travis and Dhana Gilbert. HBO and Warner Bros. Television continue to produce the series.

HBO has not announced who will direct Season 2.

What about the three-season plan?

The renewal confirms Season 2 only.

The Muschiettis have previously described a larger structure that moves backward through Pennywise’s cycles:

• Season 1: 1962
• Season 2: 1935
• potential Season 3: 1908

Muschietti has described the concept as a story told backward through the historical fragments King left in the novel.

That is a creative roadmap, not a three-season HBO order.

So a 1908 season remains part of the plan, but Season 3 has not been renewed or officially ordered.

What HBO still hasn’t announced

There is currently no Season 2 premiere date, production start date, episode count or cast announcement.

What is confirmed is the part that matters most: Welcome to Derry is continuing, the story is moving to 1935, and the Bradley Gang Massacre will be at the center of it.

The renewal also comes after HBO said Season 1 ranked among the top four series premieres globally in HBO Max history.

For now, the next trip to Derry has a year and a nightmare attached to it. Everything else — including who will be wearing the clown makeup — still needs to be confirmed.