While we just heard a good amount of information about Wednesday season 2, the more important series may be the finale of Stranger Things, which will return for season 5 after some delays from the writer and actor strike. I thought it was time to run through every new update we’ve gotten about the season, along with some estimates about a release date.
So, let’s go through it all:
- Stranger Things season 5 started filming on January 8, 2024, with a big announcement that included the cast in a photo. Everyone was back from last season except the actor who played Argyle, Eduardo Franco, and it’s unclear why he was apparently written out.
- Using the January 2024 date, we can try to extrapolate a rough release date. Stranger Things season 4 started filming in late September 2020. Filming apparently went for a full year to September 2021. Then, after post-production, it did not arrive until May 2022.
- So, going off that timeline that’s about 20 months from filming to post-prudction, which would put us at around September or October 2025, but with the strike delay and the fact that this season is likely to be the biggest bet, I would not bank on that. It may very well be early 2026 with that in consideration.
- Despite this not being announced, it’s likely that Stranger Things season 5 will be broken up into two parts, as Netflix does with all their huge releases now, usually 1-3 months apart or so. It could even be broken up into three parts, which is what the final season of Cobra Kai is doing. Stranger Things’ split last time was due to production not being finished, they said, but Netflix usually does this to extend subscriptions.
- We know the first few lines of the scripts of Stranger Things season 5: “DARKNESS: The sound of cold wind, groaning trees and a child’s voice, singing a familiar song.” The first episode is called Chapter One: The Crawl.”
- We know that Will Byers will be a central focus of the season given how much of a lynchpin he is between the two worlds.
- We know that the Duffer’s have said that the final season will go into the “mythology” and lore of the Upside Down: “We were like, ‘We know what’s going on in the Upside Down, more or less, but we want it to be unknowable. We want it to be mysterious,’” Matt Duffer said. “But they were like, ‘Yeah, but can you write it down?’ And so we wrote it all down.”
- They also said it will answer the last remaining questions: “The last remaining questions that are answered in that document, we’ve punted a couple of those to have some big reveals in Season 5,” said Ross Duffer in 2022. “And that’s really going to affect what Season 5 is about.”
That’s the main slate of facts, the rest are just rumors and we’ll hopefully get more updates soon, given that we haven’t heard much since the cast photo and filming start in January. But again, it’s going to be at least another year and a half until it arrives.
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