😱 SHHH… What if the clown under your bed just got an origin story so twisted, it clawed its way to HBO’s TOP 3 premieres overnight? Stephen King’s nightmare fuel is here—and 5.7 MILLION souls already lost sleep. But the real horror? The secret in Derry’s sewers that no one’s ready for…

You think you know fear? This prequel’s demonic baby twist will haunt your Halloween forever. Don’t be the fool who misses the balloon. Stream now and float away. 👻

In a Halloween coup that has Hollywood’s horror hounds howling, Stephen King’s It: Welcome to Derry has slithered its way to becoming the third most-watched series premiere in HBO Max history, racking up 5.7 million U.S. viewers in just three days. The prequel series, a blood-soaked expansion of King’s 1986 magnum opus It, dropped its chilling opener on October 26 and immediately sank its teeth into the streaming giant’s charts—topping rankings in nearly every major global market and outpacing recent heavy-hitters like The Penguin. Only the juggernauts House of the Dragon (9.3 million in 2022) and The Last of Us (7.8 million in 2023) stand between it and the crown, leaving fans and execs alike buzzing about whether this Derry deep-dive could redefine King’s small-screen legacy.

The numbers don’t lie, and neither does the timing. HBO Max, rebranded under Warner Bros. Discovery’s cost-cutting crusade, has been starving for a seasonal smash amid a slate of underperformers. Enter Welcome to Derry, helmed by It film director Andy Muschietti and his sister Barbara, alongside scribe Jason Fuchs. Premiering just days before All Hallows’ Eve, the nine-episode beast—budgeted at a reported $150 million—unleashes a prequel tale set in 1962 Derry, Maine, unearthing the town’s cursed underbelly long before the Losers’ Club faced off against Pennywise in the 2017 and 2019 blockbusters. That opener? A gut-punch of visceral terror, kicking off with a hitchhiking kid’s nightmare encounter with a laboring mother birthing a winged, liver-munching demon spawn—straight from King’s interlude chapters, dialed up to 11 for TV gore. “It’s the kind of scare that sticks,” Muschietti told Deadline post-premiere, hinting at the episode’s “big twist” they braced for network pushback on. Spoiler for the uninitiated: It involves a factory mangling and whispers from the sewers that tie into the novel’s cosmic dread.

King’s It has long been a cultural boogeyman. The 1,138-page tome, blending childhood innocence with ancient evil, has sold over 30 million copies worldwide since its Viking Press debut. It spawned a 1990 miniseries with Tim Curry’s iconic Pennywise, but Muschietti’s films—grossing a combined $1.136 billion—reignited the frenzy, turning Bill Skarsgård’s shape-shifting clown into a millennial meme machine. Welcome to Derry picks up the thread, flashing back to the entity’s pre-clown incarnations while introducing a fresh ensemble: Jovan Adepo as the haunted Will Hanlon, Taylour Paige as his fierce sister Ronnie, and a cadre of Derry doomed including Chris Chalk, Stephen Rider, and Madeleine Stowe. Skarsgård’s Pennywise lurks in shadows—for now—teased in trailers with a red balloon bob that sent Comic-Con crowds into hysterics last summer.

The viewership spike isn’t just U.S.-centric. FlixPatrol data shows the series dominating top spots in the UK, Australia, and Brazil within 24 hours, with the original It film surging to No. 2 globally on HBO Max—eight years after its $704 million box-office haunt. Episode 2, cleverly timed for a Halloween eve drop at 3 a.m. ET on the streamer (with a TV airing November 2), promises deeper dives into the Hanlon family’s pickle-factory tragedy and kid sleuths uncovering sewer secrets. Social media’s ablaze: X users are memeing the “liver-eating baby” as 2025’s freshest phobia, with #ItWelcomeToDerry trending worldwide and fan theories exploding about Easter eggs linking to King’s multiverse (hello, 11/22/63 nods).

For King, at 78 and still cranking out hits like this year’s The Institute adaptation, it’s vindication. The Maine master—whose works have spawned over 60 films and series—has seen duds (Firestarter reboot, anyone?) but Welcome to Derry taps his sweet spot: small-town rot as metaphor for real-world rot. “Derry’s not just a place; it’s every forgotten corner where evil festers,” King tweeted post-premiere, racking up 200K likes. Critics are split but intrigued. The Guardian‘s Lucy Mangan gave it three stars, praising the “horrifying” demon baby but noting the “visceral elements [may] push viewers’ tolerance.” Rotten Tomatoes audience score? A sky-high 92%, with reviewers calling it “insanely good” and a “total monster mash” packed with book lore. SlashFilm‘s Chris Evangelista hailed it as “pop culture’s next big obsession,” while IndieWire quibbled over the adult-kid narrative balance: “Darkest with grown-ups; kids’ horrors feel obvious.”

Production was no cakewalk. Filming kicked off in Port Hope, Ontario, in May 2023—doubling as Derry’s foggy streets—before the SAG-AFTRA strike idled it till 2024. Casting wrapped in July 2025, with Adepo (fresh from 3 Body Problem) and Paige (Zola) anchoring the Hanlons, a Black family central to the book’s 1958 cycle but whitewashed in the films—a deliberate pivot Muschietti championed for “authenticity to King’s intent.” Budget overruns hit $20 million extra for practical effects—those sewer crawls and balloon rigs aren’t cheap—but HBO’s faith paid off. “We fought for the gore; it’s King’s unfiltered vision,” Fuchs revealed at NY Comic-Con, where a red-band trailer left attendees “floating” in terror.

This isn’t King’s first HBO tango. The Outsider (2020) nabbed Emmys, and 11/22/63 (2016) was a slow-burn hit, but Welcome to Derry arrives in a post-Succession void for prestige horror. Warner Bros. Discovery, bleeding $9 billion in 2022 writedowns, needs wins; the series’ global pull—streaming in 190 countries—could juice Max’s 100 million subs. Competitors like Netflix’s Stranger Things (another King echo) loom, but Derry‘s weekly drops—Sundays at 9 p.m. ET—build binge urgency, with Episode 2’s early Halloween stream a savvy ploy.

Fan fervor’s the real X-factor. X (formerly Twitter) lit up with 50K+ posts in 48 hours, from @arawynshope’s “HOLY SHIT… all the book references” to viral clips of the demon birth (flagged for spoilers). One thread by @FilmHorrorFan (10K retweets) dissects Hanlon ties to Insomnia, King’s interconnected Maineverse. Merch is flying: Pennywise Funkos sold out, and Derry “Losers’ Club” hoodies are Amazon’s top horror seller. But not all rosy—some purists gripe about deviations, like expanded 1935/1908 teases for Seasons 2-3, per Muschietti’s “backwards” timeline reveal. “Stick to the book or float,” one X detractor sniped, echoing King’s own IP gripes.

Broader strokes? 2025’s been a King cornucopia: The Monkey (horror-comedy gross-out), The Long Walk (psyche-drain epic), and The Life of Chuck (optimistic drama)—none as viscerally scary as Derry, breaking the year’s “not-horror-enough” rut. With The Running Man eyeing 2026 under Edgar Wright, King’s empire endures. “Horror’s eternal because fear is,” King mused in a Variety sit-down. HBO agrees: Renewed for two more seasons before Episode 1 aired, per insiders.

Yet risks lurk. Derry‘s R-rated edge—gore, child peril—sparks debate on streaming boundaries, especially post-Squid Game controversies. Will it alienate families chasing lighter scares like Goosebumps? Or propel Max past Disney+’s Halloween haul? Early bets: Emmy nods for Adepo’s raw turn and those effects. As one X user quipped, “Pennywise who? This Derry’s devouring souls.”

For now, the clown’s laughing last. With 5.7 million hooked and counting, It: Welcome to Derry isn’t just a premiere—it’s a plague. Tune in Sundays, or risk the sewers calling your name. Because in Derry, ignoring the balloon? That’s the real fool’s errand.