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Potential spoilers for It: Welcome to Derry follow.

If, like myself, you've read Stephen King's It, then you were probably looking for all the easter eggs you could find in HBO's It: Welcome to Derry trailer. That said, the trailer didn't seem to be touching on anything particular for readers; It director Andy Muschietti is helming the series, so it makes sense that the most recognizable It references are from his pair movies. Although there was one image, seen above, that may just be a huge tease of the larger Stephen King universe...

Or it may just be period-appropriate set dressing. We'll explain in a sec, but first, get your own look at the trailer.

Feels good to be back in Derry, right? Not for those kids, I mean, but for us horror fans. Obviously, you'll Pennywise right at the tail end there, though a couple of those creepy smiles (and one red balloon in the background) make us think that he'll be showing up in more than just his clown form over the course of the series. But it's not Stephen King's ultimate villain that we want to spend a moment talking about here - it's one of his ultimate protagonists.

Late in the 1986 novel It, our heroic kids from Derry get some help against the villain from an unexpected force - a primordial entity that claims to have been around since before our universe began. In Stephen King's overarching universe, sometimes called the Dark Tower Multiverse, we learn that this entity is known as Maturin, but what's more important is the form it takes. That is, a gigantic, cosmically propelled turtle.

So let us ask you, is that "Bert the Turtle" sign at the 39 second mark of the trailer a reference to old Maturin? The trailer does seem to make it a point, and we here at Popverse are always chomping at the bit for a good easter egg. But we may need to take the tin foil hats off for a moment, because "Bert the Turtle" has a history well outside of Stephen King's worlds.

In the 1950s, Bert the Turtle was a cartoon character whose creation was funded by the US Federal Civil Defense Administration. In the short film in which he appears, Duck and Cover, school-age children were taught (wildly inefficient) steps to take in the event of a nuclear conflict. We expect that the Derry High School is no exception to this rule, meaning that the whole thing could just be set dressing.

That said, though, we know that Andy Muschietti has made other "turtle" references in his It films, from a line of dialogue to a turtle toy kept on one of the Losers' dressers. Surely those had nothing to do with nuclear safety, so it's entirely conceivable that the image above really is the director's next reference to King's larger universe.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

It: Welcome to Derry arrives fall 2025.

In the immortal words of Danny Elfman, "Life's no fun without a good scare." We couldn't agree more, which is why we've cobbled together a couple pieces to send a chill up your spine. Join Popverse as we explore:

• The best horror movies of all time, according to horror aficionado Greg Silber
• The most underrated horror movies from the past couple years
• All the new and upcoming horror movies for 2025 and beyond

And much gore. Er, more. Much more.