The Shawshank Redemption set up Pennywise’s origin 30 years before It: Welcome to Derry

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The new ‘It: Welcome to Derry’ delves into the history of Pennywise the Dancing Clown (Bill Skarsgard), but surprisingly, hints of his origin were actually revealed three decades ago in a scene from ‘The Shawshank Redemption‘ – something most viewers didn’t realize.

The new horror series, coming in 2025, takes place 27 years before the first ‘IT’ movie, showing what happened when Pennywise terrorized the town previously. It focuses on the events leading up to the devastating Black Spot fire, a dark moment in the town’s history as described in Stephen King’s book.

Welcome to Derry explores the origins of Pennywise, detailing how the creature chose to appear as a clown – specifically, adopting the persona of Bob Gray – to attract and kill children. The book also expands on the legend of the Shokopiwah tribe, explaining how they used pieces of a meteorite to trap the creature and confine it to the area that would eventually become the town of Derry.

A significant line from the movie The Shawshank Redemption actually foreshadowed the origins of Pennywise the clown three decades ago, though viewers didn’t understand its meaning back then.

The Shawshank Redemption unintentionally references Pennywise’s cage in It: Welcome to Derry

Interestingly, The Shawshank Redemption includes a detail about black volcanic glass being buried, which is similar to how the Shokopiwah people in Stephen King’s It buried meteorite fragments around Derry to trap Pennywise – though this connection may be coincidental.

In the 1994 film, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) shares with Red (Morgan Freeman) what he’d do if he were ever released from prison. He tells Red that if he gains his freedom, he should go to a field in Buxton, Maine, where something is buried.

Red, if you ever manage to escape, I need you to do something for me. Find the place we talked about – at the bottom of that stone wall. You’ll see a strange, black, glassy rock that shouldn’t be in a field like this. There’s something hidden beneath it that I want you to have.

Okay, so in the Stephen King world, both Buxton and Derry are in Maine, but I’m not exactly sure how far apart they are. In the It miniseries, the meteorite pieces are really cool – they’re all black and look like glass. It’s also neat how they throw in a reference to Shawshank; this guy Hank Grogan, who’s actually Stephen Rider, gets wrongly accused of the theater killings and is supposed to go to Shawshank, but then a bus crash stops that from happening.

The meteorite pieces first appeared in the TV series, Welcome to Derry. They weren’t part of Stephen King’s original novel, so the connection to the red rock in The Shawshank Redemption wasn’t a deliberate nod at the time. However, director Andy Muschietti’s storyline in the series now makes that connection intentional.

Okay, so this doesn’t hurt either story at all – it actually makes the whole universe feel even bigger and more connected, like we’re getting a real Stephen King crossover! It’s super cool to see that a younger Dick Hallorann from The Shining (played by Chris Chalk) is a big part of the show too, which just adds another layer to everything.

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2025-12-11 14:49