One of the more interesting aspects of “IT: Welcome to Derry” is the way it brings The Shining character Dick Hallorann into the world of Pennywise, providing us with more details about his pre-Overlook Hotel life than Stephen King fans have ever gotten before. Hallorrann was mentioned in King’s novel IT, but the prequel series fleshes out the life of a young Hallorann.
Actor Chris Chalk (Godzilla vs. Kong) plays Dick Hallorann in “IT: Welcome to Derry,” making him the fourth actor to portray the character on screen. Gifted with the titular power, Hallorann is of course a central character in Stephen King’s The Shining, played by Scatman Crothers in the Stanley Kubrick classic, Melvin van Peebles in the Mick Garris mini-series from the 1990s that was written by King himself, and later Carl Lumbly in Mike Flanagan’s Doctor Sleep.
Dick Hallorann was indeed mentioned in Stephen King’s novel IT, which was published nine years after The Shining came along. The novel revealed that army cook Dick Hallorann worked at a Black nightclub called The Black Spot before finding his way to the Overlook Hotel, and the massacre at The Black Spot ended up being a pivotal moment in “IT: Welcome to Derry.”
“Welcome to Derry” also unlocked the darkest and most evil thoughts from within Hallorann’s mind, an event that forever changed the character and shaped him into the man we meet in The Shining. Hallorann was tortured by the horrifying spirits of the dead throughout the back half of the HBO Max series, though the finale suggests he’s on a much better path. The voices have been silenced, at least for now, and Hallorann is leaving the town of Derry behind.
Where does Dick Hallorann go from here? The first season of “Welcome to Derry” was set in 1962, so it’ll still be a couple decades before he finds himself at the Overlook Hotel. But that’s a future fate the season finale hints at. Dick tells Leroy Hanlon in the final moments of the episode that he’s headed off to a hotel in London, and “how much trouble can a hotel be?”
It’s of course a little wink for fans of The Shining, but it’s important to note that the Overlook Hotel is in Colorado rather than London. So Hallorann isn’t headed to the Overlook just yet.
Series co-creator/showrunner Jason Fuchs explains to Deadline this week, “As a Stephen King fan, it is hard when you’re working on these things, to not let your mind wander to his other Stephen King books you cared about, and think about how those stories might interact. Even you think about the end of Dick Hallorann’s journey in this show. Yes, he does say he’s going off to work at the kitchen of a hotel, but he’s not going to Colorado. He’s going to London.”
“It suggests there’s a lot of story that unravels between the end of this journey and the beginning of The Shining at the Overlook Hotel,” Fuchs goes on to explain. “We all tried very hard to stay focused on the task at hand. I’m still somewhat shocked and delighted by the reaction to the show. You just never know how people will respond. So I’m trying as best I can to live in the moment and celebrate the joy of sharing these eight stories with the audience.”
With planned future seasons of “Welcome to Derry” taking place in 1935 and 1908, does that rule out seeing more of Dick Hallorann’s journey within the confines of this series? One person who hopes to see more of the character on screen is Chris Chalk himself.
Chalk tells Men’s Health, “This is just the beginning. This is only a glimpse of who he will become, of him realizing, this is who I could be. I can be generous with my powers. But there’s still a long journey to get there. At this moment, he’s not even learning to use his powers for good yet—he’s just learning to use them at all.”
“Why not? Let’s make it happen. It’s my hope. Truly, it’s my hope,” Chalk answers when asked if he’d like to further explore the character in the HBO series. “I haven’t really talked to anybody about anything officially, but it makes so much sense. I do think there is an incredibly rich world to explore between now to once he gets to the Overlook, and then from when he gets to the Overlook until the story we all know [from The Shining].
Chalk continues, “My wife had a pitch. She said, ‘Once you get to the Overlook, there’s that picture [at the end of Kubrick’s film, of hotel guests and workers at a July 4 party in 1921]. Where did all those people go?’ And that’s the story. And you’ve got several seasons of meeting and then losing those people. Who are the twins? Did they come in alive or were they always dead? There are so many cool stories that we could explore.”
Stay tuned for more on “IT: Welcome to Derry” as we learn it.
‘The Shining’ (1980)
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