Many of Stephen King’s books and short stories take place in a larger shared universe. IT: Welcome to Derry connects to several other major works from the iconic author. The character of Dick Hallorann, played by Chris Chalk, is from both The Shining and Doctor Sleep. And Shawshank Prison is, of course, from The Shawshank Redemption. But there’s another famous work of King’s that Welcome to Derry fans believed might connect to what we saw in the season one finale. Specifically, King’s 1980 novella The Mist, a story that was famously made into a Frank Darabont film of the same name in 2007 starring Thomas Jane. But in an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Andy Muschietti, creator of Welcome to Derry, just squashed that theory for good. Here’s what he said:
There is no connection to The Mist. I’m sorry to disappoint everyone with this.
Well, so much for that theory. It: Welcome to Derry showrunner Brad Caleb Kane, a super Stephen King fan, elaborated further, saying “Not to get too nerdy, but for that to be The Mist, there would’ve had to have been a portal opened up into Todash Darkness, specifically.” The Todash Darkness is where the creatures from The Mist come from, and apparently, it is another realm entirely from where Pennywise originated.
Why Fans Believed There Was a Connection Between Welcome to Derry and The Mist
In the King novella and in the Frank Darabont film The Mist, a secret government organization in a military base in a small town in Maine (where else?) attempts to open a portal to another dimension. This results in disaster, as a thick fog emerges from the opening, and dozens of gigantic otherworldly creatures come out. The best way to describe the creatures is “Lovecraftian.” Moving through the titular mist, they pick off the town’s residents, forcing many to find shelter where they can. The main thrust of the story takes place as a group of townsfolk huddle together in a grocery store, and it becomes a human drama.
In Welcome to Derry, the writers explore the origins of the entity we know as “IT,” which will eventually become Pennywise. We know it came to Earth from another realm, inside a meteor, thousands of years ago. This information comes via members of the local Native American population. But it doesn’t necessarily come from another planet out in space. They suggest that it comes from another dimension. When Pennywise becomes unshackled from its cage in the season finale, a giant fog blankets Derry. One very similar to the one in The Mist.
This is why fans believed the entity Pennywise is from the very same dimension as the monsters from The Mist. All the creatures from that film are essentially animals, and don’t display any intelligence whatsoever. They are all predators of some kind. And clearly, Pennywise is cunning and smart and has language. But that doesn’t mean it could not have come from the same reality as the beings in The Mist. After all, our own reality contains intelligent species like humans and also millions of animal species. Why couldn’t it be the same for the beings inhabiting this dimension?
We should not overlook the fact that it was a foolish U.S. military operation that unleashed Pennywise in the season one finale. And it was a similar military operation that opened the dimensional portal in The Mist as well. Both on bases located near small towns in Maine. So, it was not that far-fetched a connection to make. In the next two seasons of IT: Welcome to Derry, should they happen, we are sure to see more links to other works of Stephen King. It just seems like The Mist won’t be one of them.
The entire first season of It: Welcome to Derry is now streaming on HBO Max.
Originally published December 14, 2025.