The scariest clown in Hollywood history appeared on the streets of several major cities on Wednesday.
Pennywise the Dancing Clown from the IT films was spotted in locations around the globe as part of a promotion for HBO‘s spinoff TV series IT: Welcome to Derry. The cities included New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Warsaw, Madrid, Manila, Mexico City, São Paulo and several others.
Pennywise — played by Bill Skarsgård in the two hit films and the show — made appearances along with his signature large red balloons. The “Red Balloon Takeover” promotion also included large balloon bundles and other series-themed characters and Easter eggs.
The upcoming series is a prequel to the IT films, which adapted Stephen King‘s horror novel about a small town in Maine that’s cursed by the presence of a shapeshifting killer that returns to murder a slew of children every 27 years.
The series (trailer below) introduces a new cast of characters living in Derry in 1962. The season is loosely based on one of the flashback Interludes from King’s novel that centered around enlisted Black servicemen.
The show was developed by IT filmmakers Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti, along with Jason Fuchs, who serves as co-showrunner with Brad Caleb Kane. Andy directed four of the season’s nine episodes. The show premieres Sunday, Oct. 26.
Skarsgård has returned to play Pennywise, a villain that King fans agreed the actor embodied to perfection, after initially turning down the chance to continue the character. In an interview earlier this year, Skarsgård assured the TV version is “hardcore.”
“I felt like I was done with it,” Skarsgård explained. “Also, because I was shooting [Nosferatu], it just felt like, ‘OK, this is the nail in the coffin on my monster roles. But it’s Barbara and Andy, and I love them … and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. We got to explore different sides of old Pennywise. There’s some cool stuff in there that we haven’t seen.”
The rest of the cast includes Taylour Paige, Jovan Adepo, Chris Chalk, James Remar, Stephen Rider, Madeleine Stowe and Rudy Mancuso.
