The latest dispatch from the world of Stranger Things is here! Filming on the fifth—and final—season of the show has commenced. The Stranger Things X and Instagram accounts both shared the exciting news with a post that read: “THIS IS A CODE RED STRANGER THINGS 5 PRODUCTION has officially begun.”
The announcement featured a behind-the-scenes picture of the cast and crew, including the show’s creators, Matt and Ross Duffer.
The news of the cast’s return to work came after the same social media channels shared the first scene of Stranger Things. In true Stranger Things style, the show’s writer’s room account on X has a long-held tradition of releasing teasers for fans over the years. The first moments of the opening scene of season five were revealed in November 2023, leaving fans eagerly awaiting the full series premiere.
It sounds like what the Duffer brothers have in store for fans in season five is going to be one hell of a tearjerker.
In 2022, Netflix released part one (or “volume one”) of season four after a three-year wait for a follow-up to season three. Part four volume two dropped on the streaming platform on July 1, 2022, six weeks after the mid-season finale. It was then confirmed the penultimate episode would be a whopping 85 minutes long, while the finale would be almost a feature-length film, rounding things off in two-and-a-half hours.
As fans of the show continue to mourn season four’s end, the creators have teased some tidbits of information pertaining to season five.
Here’s everything you need to know about Stranger Things Season 5.
Has Stranger Things Season 5 been confirmed?
In June 2024, the creators of Stranger Things released an unexpected behind-the-scenes video from the cast and crew filming the fifth season.
“We’re officially halfway through filming the fifth and final season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. Take it all in nerds, we’re going on one last final ride!” the video’s caption reads on YouTube.
From the props to the set, to real-life couple Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton looking loved up and Sadie Sink admitting the cast is “savoring” every single moment, it’s a sweet reflection of just how much the fifth season means to the makers of the show.
Despite filming for the fifth season currently being paused due to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, the show’s producer Shawn Levy has teased what fans can expect from the upcoming season.
“There’s no way to be contiguous with season 4, and not, frankly, expand scale and depth,” he told Total Film magazine.
He continued: “It’s major, major, cinematic storytelling that happens to be called a TV series. Stranger Things 5 is as big as any of the biggest movies that we see.”
The confirmation of a fifth season comes after the Duffer brothers—who executive produce, direct, and write the series—discussed their plans for the fifth season in June 2022 with The Wrap.
“We do have an outline for Season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it,” said Matt. “I mean, it was hard. It’s the end of the story. I saw executives crying who I’ve never seen cry before and it was wild.
“And it’s not just to do with the story, just the fact that it’s like, ‘Oh my God, this thing that has defined so many of our lives, these Netflix people who have been with us from the beginning, seven years now,’ and it’s hard to imagine the journey coming to an end,” he explained.
The co-creator also added that rather than build up to a big moment towards the end of season five, he and his brother plan to go hell for leather when it comes to the drama.
“Normally it’s like, ‘Oh, we get to revisit the characters in their normal lives and how they’re doing and what are their relationships like?’ And five is just going to be pedal to the metal from the opening scene. At least that’s what I remember from the outline.”
In September 2023, the official Stranger Things Twitter account shared a 10-second teaser, assuring fans in the comment section that “something sweet is coming.”
This follows a photo that the same account shared in November 2022 of the first page of the script for season five, episode one to mark Stranger Things Day on November 6. The date marks when Noah Schnapp’s character Will Byers first went missing in the first season.
“To close out #StrangerThingsDay, very excited to reveal that the Stranger Things 5 premiere episode is titled… THE CRAWL,” the post read.
Understandably the teaser has sent Stranger Things fans wild, with some thinking the episode title hints at the return of a character, while others think the title is a reference to the lyrics of “Master of Puppets” (“Come crawling faster / Obey your master”), and potentially a nod to Eddie being alive (despite him looking pretty dead at the end of season four).
Who will star in season 5 of Stranger Things?
Netflix revealed as part of its annual Tudum fan event in June that Terminator actor Linda Hamilton will be joining the cast of the show for the upcoming season, although they remained tight-lipped about the character she’ll play.
Hamilton will join regular cast members including Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Noah Schnapp (Will), Finn Wolfhard (Mike), David Harbour (Hopper), and Winona Ryder (Joyce) for the final fight in Hawkins.
How will the producers de-age adult actors to teens?
Given that filming for season four started three years ago, and that season five is due to come out next year, Stranger Things fans have been wondering how the producers will handle the issue of the principal cast looking older.
In a recent interview with Deadline, Levy revealed how the showrunners will keep the cast looking younger than they appear, without the use of AI. “Our hair and makeup and wardrobe department are pretty exceptional, using costumes and wigs and makeup,” he commented.
“The 1980s are also our friends in returning these young adult actors to their iconic Hawkins characters. So we’re going to use all the tools available to us. And I know our cast is as eager to get back to work as the rest of us.”
What have the ‘Stranger Things’ cast said about Season 5?
In June 2024, actor Maya Hawke explained why filming for season five isn’t an overnight job.
“We’re making, basically, eight movies,” she explained during a June 27 episode of Penn Badgley’s Podcrushed podcast. “The episodes are very long.”
“Our showrunners, Matt and Ross [Duffer], take a lot of responsibility,” she added. “They have an amazing team of writers, but they’re very involved.”
She noted that the “very intense and serious” showrunners’ process for writing is arduous, saying: “It takes a long time to write each season, and it takes a long time to shoot them.”
In February 2023, Harbour insisted the series has to come to a close.
“I’m feeling exhausted already,” he told Discussing Film. “I feel like I need a nap. Just thinking about the year, it’s going to be crazy. It’s nothing like I’ve ever done before.
“You know, Stranger Things had to go. We have to get going because the kids are growing up, we got to shoot this thing!”
When the show first began, Harbour says he “never ever wanted it to end,” but now he’s prepared to work on new projects.
“Now we’re almost nine years from filming the first season, and I think it is time for it to end,” the actor noted. “But it is, of course, very bittersweet. You know, there’s a sadness there. But also, we’ve all grown up. It is time for us to leave that nest and try other things and different projects.
“And to let the Duffer Brothers try different things as well. I mean, those guys are so talented. I want to see what they come up with next. So, it is bittersweet but it’s definitely time.”
The actor also revealed in an interview with Variety that he has long been aware of the show’s conclusion. “I know what happens and it’s quite moving, and quite beautiful,” he said – while remaining understandably tight-lipped on the details.
In an interview with Gold Derby in June 2022, Harbour seemingly opened up about the possibility of episodes beyond season four prior to season five’s confirmation.
“I will tell you in Season 4 and in Season 5, if we’re ever able to film again, there is a lot to be revealed around the complexities of [Hopper’s] story, which is really rich, and I’m really excited for you to see,” he stated.
The news came after the season three finale saw his character sacrifice himself so that Joyce Byers (played by Winona Ryder) could close the gate on the Upside Down while he was trapped in a room with a deadly laser.
While many fans believed Hopper to have died, the closing scenes suggested he was, in fact, alive. In September 2019, the show’s creators released a trailer for its fourth series which showed a glimpse of what appears to be Hopper and Eleven’s house in the woods in the Upside Down.
In the 45-second clip, the house’s outside light shines, flickers, and then goes out before the words “We’re not in Hawkins anymore” appear across the screen.
Netflix later confirmed that Harbour was set to return for season four when it released a video of the Stranger Things 4 table read which features actors Millie Bobby Brown, Winona Ryder, Natalia Dyer, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Maya Hawke, and Harbour.
When is the release date for Stranger Things Season 5?
Seeing as season four only dropped on Netflix in the summer of 2022, we think we’ll be waiting
a while for season five to arrive on our screens, with predictions from June 2023 suggesting the fifth season will land in summer 2024.
With that said, Harbour previously told GQ magazine that he is expecting to begin filming in 2023.
“We’re walking into season five. I’ve got a couple more months to train,” he told the publication. “We start shooting that in June, though, and that will be the final season.”
If the series follows a similar pattern to that of the past four seasons, we can expect to have to wait up to two years for the final episodes to arrive on our screens.
What has the ‘Stranger Things’ cast said about Season 5?
Actor Gaten Matarazzo has spoken about the impending conclusion of the show.
“There’s an excitement there because you always want to wrap it up and you want to see how these characters are going to finally develop one last time and how they’re going to finish their journeys,” Matarazzo said during an interview with Collider in July 2022.
“And there’s also a deep fear. Not only has it been amazing, but it’s been pretty great job security for a while. Back to freelance.”
He added: “So, I’m excited about the future, but it’s, like, the worst thing in the world. I’m going to be able to pursue other things now and I think it’s exciting, but also scary.”
Millie Bobby Brown spoke to Seventeen about her love for her Stranger Things character, Eleven.
“I look at her as such an empowering girl,” Brown said. “We both have very emotional moments together. She’s always crying, I’m always crying.
“If you were to be friends with either one of us, it would probably be her because she’s extremely selfless. But I think I’m a little bit more snappy. I’m always like, ‘Why did you do that?’ or ‘How do we fix this?’ And Eleven’s like, ‘It’s OK.’ She has a very caring, loving, and tender personality, and I think that’s a little bit of something that I don’t have. So, I look up to her in many ways.”
Schnapp admitted he still gets surprised when the creators add twists and turns to the storyline.
“They give me the script, and I’m like, ‘What the hell?!'” Schnapp told InStyle. “I couldn’t even guess where it was going. It amazes me with every new script and new season… It’s been four years now of people just loving it. I’m just so grateful.”
Finn Wolfhard discussed the inevitable end of the show in a previous interview with the film magazine The Hollywood Reporter in 2022.
“I think they will figure out what time is best to end the show,” Wolfhard said. “But obviously we love making the show. It’s a great process. It’s a lot of fun, and I love the cast and crew and it’s great. So, whenever they want to stop, I’ll stop. But I don’t know. I’ll keep going for as long as they want to keep going.”
What else do we know about Stranger Things season 5?
Following season four’s release, the Duffer brothers announced on social media that they were planning several new spin-off projects set in the Stranger Things universe.
“We have some ideas. In terms of if we were to do any sort of spin-off or any continuation of Stranger Things, for us, the bar was always, ‘Is the idea exciting enough that we feel the pull of wanting to do it again?’ I want to feel the pull of, ‘God I really want to do this. I feel really, really excited about this.’ So that’s why we’re being careful about what that is and whether we move forward with it or not,” the pair told Variety.
In July 2022, it was confirmed the brothers had set up a new production company, Upside Down Pictures, to house the spin-offs they were planning.
It was then announced that they had signed a new deal to produce a stage show set in the Stranger Things universe with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child producer Sonia Friedman. The play will be written by Kate Trefry and directed by Stephen Daldry.
Upside Down Pictures will also produce a live-action adaptation of the Japanese anime series Death Note for Netflix and an original series from Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews.