Despite the series Welcome to Derry being a prequel to Stephen King's IT, viewers should not hold their breath when it comes to the prospect of seeing Maturin the Turtle finally realized onscreen. It is always tricky for creators to make a big-screen horror villain work on television. Not only can television budgets rarely afford the same CGI and makeup effects as movies, but the longer runtimes of television shows mean that monsters who were effective when briefly seen on the big screen lose their ferocious appeal when the longer runtimes of television sap them of their mystery.
As a result, many horror television shows like the Nightmare On Elm Street series are anthologies that tell standalone stories with new self-contained villains. Despite this, the upcoming IT prequel Welcome to Derry will endeavor to buck this tradition by telling the story of IT's rise to power, even though the titular antagonist of the Stephen King novel is an ageless, ancient entity that is older than the universe itself. Despite taking on this plot, it is unlikely that Welcome to Derry will feature one legendary King character.
Maturin the Turtle is an equally ancient cosmic entity that plays a role in King's IT novel, and he might be the most important character in King's fictional universe. While Easter eggs connect many of King's works, only Maturin's backstory explains where the entire universe featured in King's books and stories comes from. It was vomited up by Maturin at the beginning of time, resulting in the dawning of the galaxy as humans know it. However, Welcome to Derry is set to take place in the 1960s, meaning that the show won't flash back to Pennywise's cosmic origins and, as such, it almost certainly won't feature an appearance from Maturin the Turtle either.
It is possible that Welcome to Derry could feature an appearance from the turtle, but the fact that the already ambitious two-part IT movie adaptation steered clear of this is not reassuring for fans hoping to see the character realized onscreen. Few television shows have attempted to depict the birth of the universe, and, after Firestarter's failure shook King's status as a hitmaker, it is unlikely that the creators of IT's prequel series will be willing to attempt such a massive undertaking. -Collider
