Stranger Things Final Season Has Been Delayed
The final season of Stranger Things has been indefinitely delayed due to the WGA strike.
The fifth and final season of Stranger Things has been delayed indefinitely due to the writers strike. Brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, the series’ executive producers, creators, and showrunners, have confirmed that the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike has impacted their production. As Deadline reports, the pair confirmed on Twitter that viewers will have to wait a bit longer to see the culmination of the story of the Eleven and her friends.
The Stranger Things chiefs appeared to imply that the scripts for Season 5 have been completed, stating that writing continues on-set during filming. Indeed, series often have writers available to help rework things in the script that aren’t panning out in front of the camera. But if that’s the only thing the Duffer brothers are expecting from writers on the show at this point, those cameras could be very close to rolling once the strike ends.
Stranger Things fans have, of course, been eagerly anticipating the series’ denouement, ad the Duffer brothers have teased a bit of what they can expect. The opening of the season, they told Deadline, finds the main characters already “in action” with “a goal and a drive” that will shave some time off the beginning of the story and give viewers a different experience going in. They also compared the ending of the series to Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, saying that it will have “like, eight endings.”
Those eight endings might be the wrap-up for Stranger Things, but the series’ central psychokinetic teen will live on. As we reported exclusively, star Millie Bobby Brown has signed on for an Eleven spin-off that will stream on Netflix, though no further details have yet been announced. It’s an interesting development since the star reportedly turned down an offer of millions of dollars to appear in a spin-off movie.
While the Stranger Things creators surely want their production to move forward as soon as possible, their main focus right now is on film and television writers reaching an equitable agreement. The fact that they don’t want production to move forward without the possibility of writers on the set also shows they see writers as essential to their work and support the strike. They even ended their tweet with “#wgastrong,” saying that they are hoping for a fair deal to be reached quickly.
While Stranger Things hits pause with no date set for production to resume, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power won’t stop production during the strike, with producers saying that Season 2 of the series was already written before the strike began. The Tolkien-based fantasy epic appears to be able to move forward without writers on set, which indicates a difference in production style. Other films and series may still halt production during the strike, with late-night talk shows already the first to take a break.
It’s impossible to know when production on Stranger Things Season 5 will resume, though all parties involved are hoping for a quick resolution. Still, the potential length of the strike should not be underestimated. The most recent previous WGA strike began in November of 2007 and was not ended until February of 2008, a 100-day stretch that was very difficult for the entertainment industry.
But Stranger Things stands in solidarity with the WGA, and we’re hopeful that a resolution will be reached soon.
