Netflix's 'Stranger Things' Resumes Production On Season 4
The streaming service shared a cryptic on-set photo.
While 2020 has been a rollercoaster ride filled with ups and seemingly mostly downs, Netflix has shared some good news from The Upside Down.
In a cryptic tweet, the streaming service has revealed that their hit sci-fi drama Stranger Things is back in production. Work on season 4 of the show has previously shut down due to the on-going COVID-19 pandemic. Now, cast and crew are seemingly back on set.
In the photo shared by both Netflix and Stranger Things' official Twitter accounts, a clapperboard is featured in front of a blurry clock. The clapperboard reads "Scene 8.19, Take 79." Some fans may see this as no coincidence, as Soviet Cosmonauts Vladimir Lyakhov and Valery Ryumin return to Earth on August 19, 1979 after having spent 175 days in outer space.
"Now going into the fourth season, there’ll be a real shift to what he’s going to become — or what he has to become after his character’s 'death.' His 'resurrection' has to be something different," show star David Harbour stated on the L.A. Times Can't Stop Watching podcast earlier this year.
Harbour added, "We’re going to go into a lot more stuff you don’t know about. It won’t come as a surprise, because it’s been laid in certain ways, but you really don’t understand the depths of it. They’ve been putting me off for years and then they gave me these things. I’m like 'Whoa, yes, we’re finally going to get into this stuff that we’ve been talking about since day one of the first season.' This stuff is meaty, rich stuff that I’ve always known about him and been dying to talk about, but we haven’t revealed it yet."
Since then, Harbour also revealed that Season 4 will not be the end of the Emmy nominated series. The show could possibly be returning for a fifth season, which series creators the Duffer Brothers later confirmed in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
"Season four won't be the end," said Ross Duffer. "We know what the end is, and we know when it is. [The pandemic] has given us time to look ahead, figure out what is best for the show. Starting to fill that out gave us a better idea of how long we need to tell that story."
Duffer also added that the shutdown allowed the show's writers to finish writing the whole season — which appears to be comprised of eight episodes, as seen in a photo included in a tweet from the show's writers' room revealing a pile of scripts, with the caption "Stranger Things 4: the complete season" (below) — thus giving them room to make changes if needed.
"We've had a lot more time to work on the scripts," said Duffer. "For the first time, we have all the scripts written and we're able to look at it as a whole piece and make adjustments."
In addition to Emmy nominee Harbour, also returning for Season 4 are fellow featured cast members Winona Ryder, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Joe Keery, Natalia Dyer, and Brett Gelman.
While we don't yet have a release date for the new season, fans should check out upcoming issues of the Stranger Things comics, including a Halloween prequel one-shot coming out later this month, and a new miniseries titled Stranger Things: Science Camp centered around Dustin. The first issue came out on September 30, and Issue #2 is due to drop on October 28.
A record 26.4 million U.S. viewers watched Season 3 of Stranger Things last Fourth of July weekend, according to Nielsen - approximately 17% higher than Season 2. Over the first four days of the season's release, 40.7 million households had watched the show around the globe.
To date, Stranger Things has garnered 11 Emmy Award nominations. This year, the show won the Creative Art Emmy for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Comedy or Drama Series.
- Matt Bishop