HBO's new It show looks completely terrifying in first full trailer

Sometimes it only takes a couple of big movies to launch a franchise, and horror movies rarely come bigger than the two It movies that came out in 2017 and 2019, each of which grossed hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office and proved that Stephen King's stories can still propel filmmakers on to massive success.

Now, after years of anticipation, HBO is finally gearing up to release the prequel series that it announced some time ago, telling the origin story of It's haunted town of Derry, and the first spate of killings that brought the demonic clown Pennywise to the fore. It: Welcome to Derry just got its first trailer, as you can see below.

IT: Welcome to Derry | Official Teaser | HBO Max - YouTube

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Sadly, the trailer ends without any confirmation of an exact release date beyond "This Fall", but that still confirms that you'll be able to sink into its terrifying world before the year is up. We also do get a pretty good look at how things will unfold, including seeing the gang of kids who are going to find themselves investigating something way scarier than they first realise.

It's all spurred on by persistent and unexplained disappearances in Derry, leading up to the events of 1962, when the show is set. It seems the local police are either unable or unwilling to delve too deep into what's happening to the missing kids, and when local youths start to investigate, they start seeing properly eery sights.

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For anyone who's seen the movies or read the book, this will be one of those stories with an ending we already know – but that can sometimes accentuate the tension, rather than undermine it. After all, Andor on Disney+ has been a minor sci-fi masterpiece, and we all knew how that would end before it started.

So, there's every reason to hope that Welcome To Derry could be something equally special, with the HBO secret sauce to help. The trailer also ends with a reminder that "Max becomes HBO Max this summer", in case you missed that amusing news about one of the best streaming services out there.