‘Welcome to Derry’ Boss Says ‘Friday the 13th’ Movies Inspired Approach to Prequel (Exclusive)

Growing up in the 1980s during the golden age of slasher movies had a lasting impact on TV writer and producer Brad Caleb Kane, who would eventually go on to serve as a co-showrunner of HBO’s It: Welcome to Derry. 

“Every Friday night a new slasher would come out in theaters, whether it was The New Kids or a Friday the 13th Part III, which is the first one I saw in theaters in 3-D, or The Burning. Every week these came out and I would see them in 1,500-seat theaters with screaming crowds” Kane, now 52, tells PEOPLE in a conversation following the season 1 finale of the It prequel series, which is now streaming on HBO Max.

Specifically, when it came to the third installment in the Friday the 13th franchise about a killer in a hockey mask and wielding a machete slaughtering teenagers, Kane remembers how everyone around him reacted while watching the 1982 hit. “I remember when Jason squeezed a guy’s head and his eyeball popped out into the audience and the audience flipped out,” he recalls. 

“I remember looking around and seeing everyone freaking out and going, ‘I want to make people feel like that,’ ” Kane, who is also the creator of the franchise’s upcoming prequel series, Crystal Lake, continues. 

“That feeling I had as a kid watching those movies is a direct line to what we tried to do in Welcome to Derry. Because we wanted it to be an emotional roller coaster that gets you so personally invested in the characters that you weep, that you jump and that you cry for Riche’s death, that you leap out of your chair when he comes back in the finale,” says Kane, who shared showrunning duties with fellow producer Jason Fuchs, while siblings Andy Muschietti and Barbara Muschietti developed and executive produced the series. 

“I like to make people go crazy when they watch a piece of entertainment, to get so invested that they go, ‘This is more than art, this is more than content. This is gonna be my whole personality for a summer,’ you know what I mean?” he adds. 

Much like the slasher movies he watched as a kid, Welcome to Derry included several shocking moments throughout season 1, from a bloody opening that wiped out what viewers initially thought was a new version of the Losers’ Club to Pennywise’s horrifying new look in the final two episodes to Richie’s (Arian Cartaya) emotional sacrifice and defiant comeback moment in the finale. 

Kane, who is lifelong Stephen King fan and first read Cujo when he was 8 years old, also credits Andy, 52, for “tapping into that nostalgic feeling where he really didn’t hold back on the horror” with the It film remakes, Chapter One released in 2017 and Chapter Two released in 2019.

The producer adds that everyone involved in Welcome to Derry were “absolutely fearless storytellers,” which is why they were able to take risks — including the one seen in the first episode. “Basically, there was a pilot that Andy, Barbara and Jason wrote the story for. That was basically the pilot that you see now, except all of those kids lived,” Kane says. “And my creative contribution, my suggestion to everybody was — and this could have been shot down immediately ’cause it’s a crazy idea — what if we just killed them all. What if we killed 75% of them to show that nobody is safe.” 

“To all of their credit, Andy, Barbara and Jason were like, ‘We have to do that.’ And from that moment on, I knew I had found my people and that they were my creative soulmates,” he continues, saying that from then on, they all doubled down on taking big creative swings until they had “a truly madcap, crazy, exciting, unpredictable show.” 

Later, when it came to Richie’s death while saving his friend, Marge (Matilda Lawler), from a fire at an off-grid watering hole, the Black Spot, Kane says there was no hesitation about following through with that storyline. “The character we built would’ve sacrificed himself. It felt natural,” he explains, noting that he’s really proud of the way that he constructed the arc between the two young characters and how “it set Rich and Marge up in a way that would pay off emotionally.”

When it comes to Richie’s spirit flipping off Pennywise in the finale while he’s running to help his friends restore the boundary that will keep the living nightmare from escaping Derry, Kane says that was an idea that came directly from Andy. “I knew it was funny. I knew it was clever. But I had no idea the way he shot it, seeing that final scene, that it would be as emotional as it was, that it would be a cheer moment,” the producer says, acknowledging that “it came directly from Rich Tozier [played by Finn Wolfhard] in the It movies and how Richie’s that guy too — making the connection between Richie, Rich and Marge.” 

That kind of Easter egg, Kane says, was one that “felt organic” for it “to exist in Welcome to Derry” have it come into the story, like mentioning the Shawshank prison and other moments that referenced that larger Stephen King universe.

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While Kane and the rest of the team are mapping out two additional seasons they have planned for Welcome to Derry, the producer is also working on his own prequel to Friday the 13th, which will be focused on Jason Voorhees’ mother, Pam, who was the original killer in the franchise’s first movie.  

The series, which is produced by A24 for Peacock, stars Linda Cardellini as Pam and has been described as a psychological, paranoid ’70s-type thriller. But Kane’s experiences at the theaters 40 years ago still factored into what he helped create for the show. “When the opportunity came along to do a Friday the 13th TV show, I looked around and I said, ‘I want to be able to make people feel that,’ ” he says, again, referring to that eyeball scene from Part III.

As for what he can tease about the upcoming show, he says, “It’s really a showcase for Linda.” He adds, “it’s really Pamela Voorhees’ story. I don’t think it’s any spoiler to say we cast a Jason in it [played by Callum Vinson] and you can’t do a Friday the 13th prequel without Jason. But it’s really Pam’s journey.”

“I’ts gonna shock and surprise people,” Kane continues, adding, “I don’t think Linda’s ever quite had a showcase like this. Her range is phenomenal… It’s really an acting feat and you cannot take your eyes off her.”