SPOILER WARNING: The following article contains spoilers for IT: Welcome To Derry Season 1. If you have not yet watched the run, take advantage of your HBO Max subscription to do so and then head back here!
As things presently stand, we don’t know what the future holds for IT: Welcome To Derry. While there has been a lot of talk from the show’s creators about a three-season plan, we don’t yet know if they will get a chance to execute it, as HBO has not yet announced whether or not the show will be renewed. Needless to say, the fingers of Stephen King fans around the world are tightly crossed hoping for good news… but while we’re all putting out positive vibes into the universe, I’m also going to hope that co-showrunner Jason Fuchs gets the opportunity to tell a story that would make an excellent spinoff from the hit show: the continued adventures of Dick Hallorann.
Brilliantly played by Chris Chalk, Dick has one of the best arcs of any character in IT: Welcome To Derry Season 1, and while developments in the finale suggest that he won’t be a presence in Season 2 (in addition to the fact that events will principally take place in 1935), Fuchs doesn’t feel ready to say goodbye to him just yet. When I spoke with the filmmaker earlier this month, he told me not only about the special approach that was taken to the character on the show but also about his interest in continuing to follow him on his path to the Overlook Hotel.
The Journey Of Dick Hallorann On IT: Welcome To Derry
When we first meet Dick Hallorann in The Shining, he is a genial man who is quick to take young Danny Torrance under his wing when he discovers that the kid has psychic abilities – but that’s definitely not the guy who is introduced in the early episodes of IT: Welcome To Derry. He is introverted, somewhat selfish, and while he possesses a powerful and special gift, he is more tortured by it and fearful of it than anything else.
Over the course of eight episodes, what Dick witnesses in Derry changes him as a person, and that was a vital goal for Jason Fuchs and the Derry writers in the crafting of Season 1. He still has a road to travel before he becomes the man who helps welcome the Torrance family to the Overlook hotel, but he has taken his first step on that path, first helping save lives at the burning of the Black Spot and then helping to stop Pennywise from escaping. Fuchs told me,
The journey of seeing his power as a gift, not a curse is fundamentally the journey of Dick Hallorann in this season. And obviously the performance that Chris delivered was so special and elevated all of this. I do wonder where he goes next, because when he says goodbye to Leroy, he doesn’t say, ‘I’m off to Colorado.’ He’s off to London. He got a job in a hotel here in London where I currently live.
This is actually a detail I really love: it would have been so, so easy for the writers to just send Dick Hallorann to Colorado at the end of the show, but he certainly isn’t ready for head cook job at the Overlook yet. Instead, he is going to need to hone some skills in the world of hospitality and add to his resume.
But what awaits Dick in London? That’s not answer that Jason Fuchs currently has, but he is certainly intrigued by the “gap” that is now wide open for creative exploration:
I wonder what that’s about. I wonder what the connection is between that chapter and his journey and where he eventually winds up. And again, I like not having the answer to all these mysteries. I like not filling in some of those blanks. I get excited thinking about what happens in the years to come for Dick Hallorann.
Perhaps excited enough to create a whole new show?
After IT: Welcome To Derry, A Dick Hallorann Spinoff Would Be Super Cool
If the idea of a project specifically about Dick Hallorann sounds familiar, it’s because it is an idea that has been pitched before. When Mike Flanagan was making Doctor Sleep – which features Carl Lumbly as Dick’s ghost – there were conversations had about developing a prequel titled Hallorann that would have explored the man’s pre-Shining years. That idea went away when Doctor Sleep underperformed at the box office, but in a post-IT: Welcome To Derry world, it makes a lot of sense and would be amazing to see.
During my conversation with Jason Fuchs, I asked if there were any other Stephen King-related stories that he would be interested in telling, and the first title he suggested was a Welcome To Derry spinoff that would follow the psychic airman to his hotel gig in London. He told me,
As I said, a Stephen King fanatic, Constant Reader, there are a lot of Stephen King stories I’d be interested in. I really would be interested, as you sort of hinted, in the Dick Hallorran story. I’m curious to see where that goes. And I would not totally close the door on an opportunity to be a part of telling that chapter if there were anyone who was as interested in it as I am.
In a perfect world, Jason Fuchs would get together with Mike Flanagan and they could collaborate on making a Dick Hallorann series together with Chris Chalk starring… but knowing that Flanagan is quite busy with his Carrie limited series, the new Exorcist movie, and all of the work going into making the Dark Tower adaptation, I would also be totally fine if it were just Fuchs and Chalk working on the show.
Will it happen? We’ll have to wait and see, and if it does, you can be sure that you’ll find plenty of reporting on it here on CinemaBlend.
