Stranger Things’ Final Season Is 8 ‘Very Long’ Episodes, Will Be Filming All Year, Says Maya Hawke
Stranger Things is only about halfway done filming its fifth and final season, if I mathed the math right.
Maya Hawke, who plays Robin on the series and is also doing the rounds on behalf of the big-screen blockbuster Inside Out 2 (in which she voices Anxiety), shared an update on the Netflix hit’s swan song during a visit to the Podcrushed podcast.
“We’re making, basically, eight movies,” Hawke said when describing the supernatural drama’s scope (watch video above). “The episodes are very long.”
Following Hollywood strikes-related delays, fIlming on Stranger Things‘ eight-episode farewell run officially began on Jan. 8, 2024. Filming is expected to take about a full year, Hawke ventured.
When Podcrushed cohost Penn Badgely remarked that a year is a long time, Hawke flatly affirmed, “Yes. it is.”
Hawke explained that while showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer work with “an amazing team of writers,” they themselves are “very involved” and “take a lot of responsibility” for the end product.
“[T]hey are very intense and serious about the quality of the continued writing, and so it takes a long time to write each season,” she said, “and a long time to shoot them.”
Hawke describing the final episodes as “very long” and “movie”-like runs a bit counter to what the Duffer Brothers said two years ago, when comparing the final season to the series’ fourth, which served up several 80-minutes episodes followed by three that averaged 110 minutes.
“[W]e don’t expect” Season 5 to run as long, they said.
Stranger Things producer Shawn Levy, who directed one of the final-season episodes, meanwhile told Total Film magazine, “There’s no way to be contiguous with Season 4, and not, frankly, expand scale and depth.”
Spinning the story of Eleven, Mike, Hawkins and the Upside Down is “major, major, cinematic storytelling that happens to be called a TV series,” he said, adding: “Stranger Things 5 is as big as any of the biggest movies that we see.”
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Sigh. I hate hearing this because last season was such a slog. These interminably long eps are full of characters and situations I don’t care about!
I agree, they need to slim back the cast.
For me, the longer, the better. Season 4 went by in the blink of an eye. I can’t wait to spend some quality time with my favourite cast. Bring it on.
Sounds like the episodes should be released separately.