Yahoo Finance Stranger Things Season 5: Everything to Know
Netflix
This post contains spoilers for Stranger Things 4, Vol. 2.
Stranger Things is officially coming to an end.
Following the release of season 4, part 2 on July 1, 2022, the show's upcoming fifth season will be its last.
The show's creators Matt and Ross Duffer announced the beginning of the end in February 2022 when they revealed that the "supersized" season 4 would be the penultimate season.
"Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things. At the time, we predicted the story would last four to five seasons," they wrote at the time. "It proved too large to tell in four, but – as you'll soon see for yourselves – we are now hurling toward our finale."
Though we still have a way to go before the final season premieres, the cast and creators have already teased what's in store, including a potential time jump.
Here's everything we know about season 5.
Who will star in Stranger Things season 5?
It's likely that most of the main cast — including Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, and Maya Hawke — will make an appearance in the final season.
Seeing that the characters don't actually defeat Vecna at the end of season 4, it's likely that Jamie Campbell Bower will also be back as the Big Bad.
In August 2022, the Duffer brothers confirmed to Indiewire that they are mindful of wrapping up stories for the characters they introduced to the world way back in season 1.
"We're doing our best to resist [adding new characters] for Season 5," Matt said. "We're trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess." Ross added: "We've got a great cast of characters here, and actors, and any moment we're spending with a new character, we're taking time away from one of the other actors."
RELATED: 'Stranger Things' Creators Say They Are 'Trying' Not to Add New Characters to Season 5
What will Stranger Things season 5 be about?
Though Netflix hasn't revealed the official plotline for season 5 yet, it will likely follow the Hawkins kids as they try to defeat Vecna once and for all now that the Upside Down has invaded their town.
The Duffer brothers have teased their endgame for the show in previous interviews, and it sounds emotional. In a conversation with The Wrap, Ross Duffer revealed that some Netflix executives actually teared up when they announced their plans for season 5.
"We do have an outline for Season 5 and we pitched it to Netflix and they really responded well to it," he said. "I mean, it was hard. It's the end of the story. I saw executives crying who I've never seen cry before and it was wild."
David Harbour previously told Variety that he knows how the series ends and "it's quite moving and quite beautiful."
Speaking with Today's Hoda Kotb and Jenna Bush in January 2023, Sink teased that while she doesn't know much about the upcoming season, she knew it would be "emotional." She added, "Spoiler-free, just with the way my character ended in season 4, I have no idea what is going to happen. But I'll be there."
Courtesy of Netflix From left: Gaten Matarazzo Joe Keery, Sadie Sink and Maya Hawke in season four of Stranger Things
When will Stranger Things season 5 be set?
The show's creators previously revealed that season 5 will feature a time jump to more accurately portray their young stars who have grown up before viewers' eyes during the show's run.
"Ideally, we'd have shot [seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that," Ross told TVLine. "So these are all discussions we're going to have with our writers when we start the room up."
It's possible that the show could do a 4-year time jump to match up the actors' real-life ages with their characters (for example, Eleven is about 14 years old on the show, while Brown is 18 in real life).
With season 4 being set in 1986, that could place the final season at the beginning of the '90s, which would be new territory for the '80s-set show.
How long will Stranger Things season 5 be?
In the Duffer brothers' interview with The Wrap, they teased that season 5 won't be as lengthy as season 4, which clocks in at about 13 hours long.
"I don't think it'll be as long," Matt Duffer said. "The final few is going to be more like a Return of the Jedi in that … they're going from the beginning. There's going to be less ramp up. And I think people will understand what I'm talking about when they see the end of this season. It's like, we're just going."
Netflix
When does Stranger Things season 5 start filming?
On Aug. 2, 2022, the Stranger Things writers' room Twitter account teased that they were getting started on the script for season 5 as they tweeted "Day 1" alongside a photo of a whiteboard with the text "Stranger Things 5."
During the Middle East Film & Comic Con in March 2023, Harbour teased that filming is expected to begin in summer 2023. "We're walking into season five. I've got a couple more months to train. We start shooting that in June, though, and that will be the final season," he said, according to Collider.
When will Stranger Things season 5 premiere?
Netflix hasn't revealed an official release date for season 5 yet, but the show's creators have confirmed that it will definitely be a shorter break than the 3-year gap between seasons 3 and 4.
"The gap should be quite a bit shorter this time, due to the fact that we already have an initial outline, and we can't imagine there will be another six-month forced hiatus," the Duffer brothers told Variety.
Given that season 5 hasn't started filming yet and all the special effects that go into the show, we likely won't get new episodes until 2024.
Meanwhile, David Harbour shared an update in September 2022, jokingly telling Entertainment Tonight, "You'll see it in another 15 years when it's able to be released when we've shot it."
Will there be any Stranger Things spinoffs?
While season 5 is the end of Stranger Things, it might not be the end of the franchise. The Duffer brothers have suggested that they have a spinoff in mind.
"There's a version of it developing in parallel [to season 5], but they would never shoot it parallel," Ross told Variety. "I think actually we're going to start delving into that soon as we're winding down and finishing these visual effects, Matt and I are going to start getting into it."
Matt added, "The reason we haven't done anything is just because you don't want to be doing it for the wrong reasons, and it was just like, 'Is this something I would want to make regardless of it being related to Stranger Things or not?' And definitely. Even if we took the Stranger Things title off of it, I'm so, so excited about it. But it is not… It's going to be different than what anyone is expecting, including Netflix."
Though they have kept tight-lipped about the plot of the spinoff, Stranger Things star Finn Wolfhard is already in on the secret after he correctly guessed what the new series would be. "Finn Wolfhard, he wasn't spitballing, he just went, 'I think this would be a cool spin-off,'" Ross recounted. "And we were like, 'How in the world…'"
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Stranger Things season 4 is currently streaming on Netflix.
