The pandemic has created at least one major advantage for “Stranger Things” — for the first time in the show’s history the creators were able to write the entire season before going into production.
In the past, the Matt Duffer and his brother Ross have typically finished five or six episodes of an eight-or nine-episode season when filming begins, actor Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson in “Stranger Things,” recently told Collider.
Once filming begins, the Duffer brothers will then flesh out the remaining episodes — meaning that the “Stranger Things” actors often don’t know what’s going to happen or where the storyline is headed.
“So the pressure is usually on and when that happens, usually there’s like a two to three week hiatus where we’ll go home and take a break, and during that two to three weeks, Matt and Ross are home and they are writing,” Matarazzo told Collider. “Like nonstop, panic-writing.”
But 2020 was different.
Just a month after the first table read of “Stranger Things” Season 4, the pandemic shut down production. That gave the Duffer brothers the chance to finally finish writing a full season.
And, Matarazzo said, it’s made a difference for everyone on set, allowing the cast to focus more on how to deliver the show rather than wondering what the story is about.
When will ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 come out?
Although the entire script is written, the pandemic continues to make the process of filming “Stranger Things” Season 4 a challenge.
- “There’s very few dates that are reliable,” Matarazzo told Collider. “It really is more of a guesstimation on when we’re gonna be filming next, when we’re gonna be wrapping up, when release is gonna be, all that jazz because we still don’t know on day to day if we’re gonna be filming next week. ... So because of that, there’s really no way to figure out when we’re gonna be wrapping.”
Caleb McLaughlin, who plays Lucas, recently told Teen Vogue that filming during the pandemic has been an unusual process.
- “Everything is backward because of COVID,” he said. “If there is a scene with extras, we can’t film with everyone right now. We have to only film scenes where there are fewer people.”
- This means that the release of “Stranger Things” Season 4 is still far away— although IMDb still lists a release date of 2021.
What is ‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 about?
- Actor Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler, recently said the upcoming season is “the darkest season there’s ever been,” the Deseret News reported.
- The new season will introduce several new characters and extend beyond the town of Hawkins.
- The upcoming “Stranger Things” season will also dive deeper into the character of Jim Hopper, Hawkins’ chief of police, the Deseret News reported.