As hype is building ahead of the release of Netflix’s Stranger Things season four, the show's creators, the Duffer brothers, have revealed that each episode would be more than an hour long.
During Deadline’s Contenders Television panel, Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed the new season’s episode duration would ‘almost double’ compared to previous episodes, which are around 42 to 55 minutes long.
“I don’t think we have an episode clocking in under an hour – even in Season 1 there were episodes that were like 35 minutes. You kind of forget that,” Matt said.
“This season, they’re very long, so I think it’s almost double the length of any season. So that’s one reason it’s taken so long. It does have this sort of epic quality to it. It’s a different feel, for sure.”
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The brothers noted that the show’s storyline would be intertwined with different locations, as many characters were displaced all over the world following season three’s cliffhanger.
“Joyce and Byers family to have left at the end of Season 3,” said Matt.
“They are in California – we’ve always wanted to have that like E.T.-esque suburb aesthetic, which we finally got to do this year in the desert; and then we have Hopper in Russia; and then of course we have a group remaining in Hawkins.
“So we have these three storylines, are all connected and kind of interwoven together, but it’s just very different tones.”
The show’s creators also said that as the series takes place in the '80s, a time when Winona Ryder saw immense international fame with pop-cultural phenomenons like Beetlejuice and Heathers, they are avoiding a crossover.
“That’s the threshold we can’t cross, which is once Winona is a superstar in the world, like the show has to stop, because [the kids’ heads] will spontaneously combust or something,” Matt said.
Ross added: “That’s the final scene: the kids go to see Beetlejuice and their heads explode."
While the Duffer brothers are mostly remaining tight-lipped about the upcoming season, Netflix threw us all a bone and gave us a proper synopsis.
It read: “In this most vulnerable time, a new and horrifying supernatural threat surfaces, presenting a gruesome mystery that, if solved, might finally put an end to the horrors of the Upside Down.”
Look, it's not much but it's enough to get us very excited.
Stranger Things season four will be released on May 27 on Netflix.
Topics: TV and Film, Good News, News, Stranger Things, Netflix
Charisa Bossinakis