Netflix ‘Stranger Things’: Showrunners reveal their key inspiration for final season

Netflix’s popular series Stranger Things is heading towards its endgame, its fifth and final season.

Show creators and directors, Duffer Brothers revealed that the final season of the show draws inspiration from the series’ second.

Speaking to Netflix, via their Tudum site, the Duffer Brothers explained that, following the immense success they experienced after Season 1, they had to build outwards and expand the world, the mythology - and the eventual endgame for Hawkins, Indiana, via The Collider.

“The success of Season 1 freaked us out and then we knew we needed to build up this bigger world, that this was going to be ongoing,” said Ross Duffer.

“That meant prep for Season 2 included filling up a whiteboard with every idea the writers’ room could imagine. But it was way too much — [five times] more ideas than we needed, or [ten times]. For Season 5, we're pulling from a lot of those big Season 2 ideas… A lot of our big ending stuff has pulled from stuff that we thought was going to be in Season 2.”

The creators shared that they reassessed things before they pitched their new vision of the ending to Netflix. “We reread the document,” said Matt Duffer. “We’re like, ‘That’s cool, that’s cool. That could be a lot better. That could be a lot better. Even the ending is a little bit different [now]. A lot of the big ideas are the same, but the stuff that happens within, it's very different.”

Stranger Things will begin filming its fifth and final season in 2023, with a release date yet to be announced.