If the Duffer brothers are to be believed, Stranger Things season five will be the show’s most emotional installment yet
Most of us are still reeling from Stranger Things season four, but it’s time to buckle up, fam — at a press event in LA last weekend, the show’s creators, Ross and Matt Duffer, offered some hints about the emotional turmoil that’s yet to come when the show’s fifth and final season hits Netflix.
“We did get our executives to cry, which I felt was a good sign,” Matt Duffer said, after describing a meeting in which the show’s creators pitched the entire fifth season to the streaming giant. “The only other times I’ve seen them cry were like budget meetings,” as the crowd laughed.
Producer Shawn Levy, who was also at the event, added, “Those were different tears. As a witness and having been in that two-hour pitch room and having read this first script—I’m paralyzed with fear that I’ll spoil anything, but I will say the thing about these Duffer Brothers is that even though the show has gotten so famous and the characters have gotten so iconic and there’s so much about the ’80s and the supernatural and the genre, it’s about these people, it’s about these characters.”
He added, to the delight of fans of the show, “Season five is already so clearly taking care of these stories of the characters because that’s always been the lifeblood of Stranger Things.”
There’s no set release date yet for the fifth season, but considering the production timeline, it’s probably not realistic to expect it until late 2023 or early 2024, at the earliest. During the press event, the creators did update fans that they were making good progress.
“We turned in the first script a couple of weeks ago, and we’re onto the second. It’s full steam ahead,” Ross Duffer said. “I remember season one, we were just amazed that Netflix was letting us do this at all, but season two was when we really, with the writers, we developed an overall plan and a backstory for all of this and make sure that, with the Upside Down, everything about what it was.”
The Duffer brothers also hinted that season four laid the groundwork for a lot of what’s still to come, but there will still be surprises for fans.
“We do have quite a bit more to get in,” Ross explained. “But just as important as the supernatural, we have so many characters now—most who are still living—and it’s important to wrap up those arcs. A lot of these characters have been growing since season one so it’s a balancing act between giving them time to complete their character arcs and also tying up loose ends and doing our final reveals.”
