IT: WELCOME TO DERRY Creator Says The Fog in The Finale isn’t Tied to THE MIST… Then Explains How It Kind of Is

Across its eight-episode run, It: Welcome to Derry leaned hard into Stephen King lore. The series is packed with cool and interesting deep-cut references pulled straight from King’s novels, alongside clever nods to his wider universe, including Carrie and The Shawshank Redemption. It’s great fan service!

The finale, though, sparked a very specific conversation. As General Shaw and the military force Pennywise out of his familiar 27-year slumber, a thick fog rolls into Derry. For a lot of fans, it was hard not to immediately think of The Mist, King’s 1980 horror story about unseen monsters stalking a town from within a supernatural haze. Visually, the resemblance felt intentional.

According to director Andy Muschietti, that connection is both there and… not there. He told Variety:

"Of course, in The Mist, they say that the mist comes from the Todash Field, the same interdimensional plane that It is from. So it's unrelated, but it's also related.

He added:

"I wanted to use the fog to visually illustrate the expansion of the clouds that surround the Dead Lights. When we see the meteor crash into Derry in episode 4, we see the three Dead Lights dancing around this cloud of fog. The physical element is established there, and for this story, I wanted to show that it is an expansive force."

In other words, the fog isn’t meant as a direct crossover tease, but it absolutely pulls from the same cosmic mechanics that underpin a lot of King’s mythos.

The Todash Field has long been the connective tissue between worlds, monsters, and realities in his stories, and It: Welcome to Derry is clearly playing in that space.

While Season 2 hasn’t officially been greenlit yet, Muschietti has already laid out plans for a three-season arc. If it moves forward, the next chapter will jump further back in time, shifting the setting to the Great Depression.

"It takes place during the Depression in Derry, and there are some new characters and some characters from this season as well, but younger versions of them.”

The first season of It: Welcome to Derry was awsome and I love how its expanding King’s shared horror universe. I can’t wait to see Season 2!