Welcome To Derry had to cut the origin story for one of its most hated characters

You’d think that trawling through the pages of Stephen King’s “It” to find enough material for a prequel series might leave you with a dearth of content. But the creators behind the surprisingly gruesome and frightening “It: Welcome to Derry” had to cut some planned aspects of their HBO show, including the origin story of one of the most hated characters in franchise history: Eddie’s mother, Sonia Kaspbrak.

Originally appearing in King’s 1986 novel, Sonia was played by Molly Atkinson in Andy Muschietti’s 2017 film adaptation “It” and its 2019 follow-up “It Chapter Two.” The character is a paranoid, manipulative and authoritarian mother who convinces her son, Eddie (played by Jack Dylan Grazer in both Muschietti films, with James Ransone in the former version) that he has various health problems in order to limit his freedom. In the book and films, Eddie eventually learns that he is perfectly healthy and that his medication is a placebo that his mother used to exert additional control. Additionally, she actively discourages his friendship with the Losers Club kids and blames them for Eddie having a broken arm. In the Muschietti films, Sonia dies of cancer between the first and second films but returns in the latter during one of Eddie’s nightmarish visions evoked by It.

As such, Sonia isn’t exactly a fan-favorite character, but with “Welcome to Derry” she might have become a little more likeable. That is, if Andy and Barbara Muschietti, along with their series co-creator Jason Fuchs, stuck to their original plan of giving him an origin story that would have explained some of his controlling behavior.

The first episodes of “It: Welcome to Derry” — which aimed to answer three main questions — discussed the creation of a statue of Paul Bunyan in Derry, with a poster promising that construction would be completed in 1962, 27 years before the events of “It Chapter One.” This is significant because he appears every 27 years to terrorize local residents, and the sight foreshadowed what was to come. In “It Chapter Two,” the titular evil entity even uses the Paul Bunyan statue to terrify Richie (Finn Wolfhard), transforming it into a giant monstrosity that chases the youngster through Derry.

In “It: Welcome to Derry”, the origin of this statue would have coincided with that of Sonia Kaspbrak. In an interview with Straw Hat Goofy, Andy Muschietti explained how the original plan for the series called for a young Sonia to arrive in town. “At one point we had Eddie Kaspbrak’s mother,” explained the co-creator, who also directed the first two episodes of the series. “She was a stranger […] She’s from Portland, she’s from another city, and she’s a reporter, and she covers like a small newspaper, she covers the Paul Bunyan building drama, and people hate it, and they protest. ” According to Muschietti, after arriving in Derry, Sonia soon begins to realize that there is a much darker and more important story to be told. “She comes and sees that there is something wrong,” he continued.[…] There are children disappearing and all these things, so she’s very quick and changes and says, “I have to cover this story.” »”

If Sonia’s story had been kept on the show, we would have eventually seen her transform into the controlling mother we saw in 2017’s “It.” Unfortunately, the show was just too busy.

“It: Welcome to Derry” is a complex series in terms of the different storylines it follows. Not only is it a prequel to the “It” films, but “Welcome to Derry” also has a major connection to “The Shining” via Chris Chalk’s Dick Hallorann and incorporates multiple elements from other King novels. Unfortunately, this necessitated the exclusion of Sonia Kaspbrak from the series, which is a shame because her evolution in the series would have explained a lot about her subsequent behavior.

According to Andy Muschietti, after arriving in Derry, Sonia was overcome by the fog that hangs over the city – a metaphorical representation of humanity’s ability to ignore injustice and suffering, but also a literal tool of Derry’s dark forces that makes residents forget the terrors they cause. As Muschietti explains: “The funny thing about Sonia is that she starts out as a real person: ‘I want to actively denounce what’s happening’ and ask people about the fog. […] and slowly over the course of the episode she falls into the fog and she becomes like a very complacent member of this community. And ultimately, she becomes Eddie Kaspbrak’s mother.”

Alas, Muschietti and his co-creators simply had to remove Sonia from the series because “there was so much story,” with the director adding, “We couldn’t put in all the scoops of ice cream we wanted.” He also noted that Sonia and Taylour Paige’s Charlotte Hanlon shared similarities in terms of being outsiders who began to question the strange goings-on in Derry, which also seems to have played into his decision to remove Sonia from the show.

“It: Welcome to Derry” is streaming on HBO Max.