Stranger Things (season 4)
The upcoming fourth season of the American science fiction horror drama television series Stranger Things, titled Stranger Things 4, is scheduled to be released worldwide exclusively via Netflix’s streaming service in 2022. The fourth season will have 9 episodes and has continued to be produced by the show's creators the Duffer Brothers, along with Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, and Iain Paterson.
The show's main cast will continue to consist of Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson, and Cara Buono, with Brett Gelman, promoted to series regular
Premise[edit]
Development
As with seasons past, planning for the fourth season of Stranger Things began before the preceding season's release. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly that ran shortly after the third season's release, series' creators Matt and Ross Duffer revealed the series' creative team had already met on several occasions to discuss the show's future.[19] On September 30, 2019, Netflix announced it had signed the Duffer Brothers for a new multi-year television and film deal that was reportedly worth nine figures.[2][3][4][5] To coincide with the production deal announcement, Netflix also announced the renewal of Stranger Things for a fourth season by releasing a brief, minute-long teaser on YouTube.[2][4][5][20] The teaser, which shows a ticking grandfather clock in the Upside Down, ends with the tagline "We're not in Hawkins anymore", which led many news outlets to speculate the show's setting would be relocated to Russia.[2][4][5][20] A second teaser was released on May 6, 2021.[21] On August 6, 2021, a sneak peek was released featuring most of the core cast and announcing that the show would return in 2022.[17] On September 25, 2021, a third teaser was released, showcasing the house that was previously owned by the Creel family.[22]
Writing[edit]
Commenting on the previous season's ending, Ross Duffer divulged the process of connecting story arcs between seasons:
Matt Duffer indicated one of the plot's "broad strokes" is the main center of action being moved out of Hawkins, Indiana, for the majority of the season, a series first.[19] He also indicated the several loose ends left by the ending of season three, such as Hopper's perceived death and Eleven being adopted by Joyce Byers and relocating with her new family out of state, will all be explored sometime during the fourth season.[19]
On November 6, 2019, in celebration of Stranger Things Day, the official social media accounts of the show's writing room revealed the title of the fourth season's first episode ("Chapter One: The Hellfire Club") and that it was written by the Duffer Brothers.[16][23] On June 18, 2020, the Duffer Brothers announced via Twitter that season four will consist of nine episodes.[24][better source needed]
Casting[edit]
By November 1, 2019, casting had begun to add four new male characters to the fourth season's lineup, with three of the roles being teenagers and one of them being an adult.[25][26] The teenaged roles were characterized as ranging "from a metalhead to an entitled jock to a character that sounds an awful lot like the twin of Fast Times at Ridgemont High stoner Jeff Spicoli", while the adult character was tied to the Russian storyline introduced during the third season.[25]
On December 3, 2019, it was confirmed by the show's writers' room that Maya Hawke's character Robin would be returning for the fourth season.[7] On February 14, 2020, Netflix confirmed David Harbour would return as Jim Hopper and that Tom Wlaschiha had been cast as a Russian malefactor.[6][11] Priah Ferguson's promotion to series regular for the fourth season was confirmed in February 2020.[8] That March, Brett Gelman's promotion to series regular was also confirmed.[9] On October 27, 2020, it was reported that Maya Hawke's brother, Levon Thurman-Hawke, was cast in an undisclosed role.[27] On November 20, 2020, Jamie Campbell Bower, Eduardo Franco, and Joseph Quinn were cast as series regulars while Sherman Augustus, Mason Dye, Nikola Djuricko and Robert Englund joined the cast in recurring roles for the fourth season.[12] On June 9, 2021, Amybeth McNulty, Myles Truitt, Regina Ting Chen and Grace Van Dien joined the cast in recurring roles for the fourth season.[28]
Filming[edit]
In February 2020, it was announced in a joint statement from the Duffer Brothers and Netflix that production had officially begun on the fourth season[6] in Vilnius, Lithuania, at the recently decommissioned Lukiškės Prison.[29][30] After production wrapped in Lithuania, filming resumed in the United States in and around the Atlanta metro area, the primary production location of previous seasons.[31][32] However, after two weeks of filming, all Netflix productions, including Stranger Things, were halted on March 16, 2020, due to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.[33] A significant portion of filming will also occur at Albuquerque Studios in New Mexico, which Netflix acquired in 2018.[34]
After several delays, filming finally resumed on September 28, 2020, in Georgia.[35] On October 1, 2020, Natalia Dyer, Sadie Sink, and Gaten Matarazzo were all spotted filming scenes at the shared Hawkins Middle School and Hawkins High School set.[36] The three were also spotted filming scenes at the set for Dustin's house the following day.[37] On October 20, 2020, Matarazzo, Sink, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke and Levon Thurman-Hawke were spotted filming scenes at the Family Video Store/Hawkins Arcade set location.[citation needed] The set locations have varied from Atlanta to Lithuania. The various social media accounts for the show have also posted two photographs from different sets: A poster for a pep rally hanging in a hallway at Hawkins High, and a clapperboard in front of a grandfather clock in the Upside Down, a scene that was first depicted in the season's initial teaser trailer.[38] On January 27, 2021, Jamie Campbell Bower was spotted filming scenes in Atlanta, Georgia whilst Matthew Modine was also seen on the set.[citation needed] In March a set photo was leaked of a trailer park being engulfed in tendrils from the Upside Down in Griffin, Georgia.[citation needed] In June 2021, David Harbour said filming was set to wrap in August.[39] The same month, Joe Keery, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Maya Hawke, Priah Ferguson, and Caleb McLaughlin were spotted filming, buying weapons from a store.[40]
In September, Noah Schnapp stated that filming had wrapped
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