STRANGER THINGS. (L to R) Noah Schnapp as Will Byers and Maya Hawke as Robin Buckley in STRANGER THINGS. Cr. Courtesy of Netflix © 2025
We’re just over a month and a half until the final season of Stranger Things begins. It’s going to be a busy few weeks of buildup, and today, we got some new insights and confirmations for Stranger Things season 5 courtesy of a tell-all Variety profile with the two creators, Matt and Ross Duffer, plus insights from Netflix’s content chief, Bela Bejaria. Plus, a brand-new first-look image.
The interview goes in-depth, so let’s pull out some of the key learnings:
- Episode details: Eight episodes total. Most run about an hour (see first four runtimes below), Episode 4, titled “Sorcerer”, clocks in at 83 minutes, and the finale, “The Rightside Up”, runs around two hours.
- Time jump: The story picks up 18 months after Season 4, with everyone back in Hawkins under military quarantine.
- Major mysteries revealed: Season 5 will finally explain what the Upside Down is. “We have to now!” said Ross Duffer. Matt added, “This is a complete story. It’s done.”
- Series scope and budget: Estimated cost of $50–60 million per episode, with 21 series regulars and a full cinematic scale. Netflix’s Bela Bajaria didn’t confirm the figure, first reported by Puck, but said the streamer spent “as much money as it is to realize the vision.”
- No theatrical finale: The Duffers wanted a limited theatrical event, but Netflix rejected it. Bajaria said, “Releasing it on Netflix is giving the fans what they want.”
- The Duffers specifically said, “People don’t get to experience how much time and effort is spent on sound and picture, and they’re seeing it at reduced quality. More than that, it’s about experiencing it at the same time with fans.”
- The ending is set: The Duffers have known the final scene “for years” and modeled the conclusion after Six Feet Under, Friday Night Lights, and The Sopranos. “The best ones were very true to themselves,” said Ross.
- Editing: Editing on the Stranger Things 5 finale is officially complete. Ross says the last 35–40 minutes of the episode are essentially an epilogue, the cast processing the end of the show and saying goodbye to their characters.
- Emotional farewell: Each actor’s final scene doubled as their last day of filming. Ross said the final 40 minutes are “us processing the end of the show and saying goodbye to these actors.”
- Future projects: The Duffers are moving to Paramount in 2026 but remain involved with Netflix projects, including The Boroughs, Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, and animated spin-off Stranger Things: Tales From ’85. No specific mention of their other Netflix projects, including Death Note, The Talisman, or The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne.
- Spinoff plans: A live-action follow-up is in development, set in “a bit of a different world” but with “connective tissue.” Duffers will be “heavily creatively involved” but not showrunners.
- Reflections on the end: “We’re trying to put 100% energy in just making sure we land this plane,” said Ross Duffer. “So no thought is going elsewhere at the moment.”
Picture: Netflix
The big interview comes after another leak overnight, which suggests that more first looks are incoming. Some have even pointed out that the show’s media page has been down, but it appears to be back as of this morning.
The new first-look image came overnight from Hawkins Happenings, a medium-sized Stranger Things fan account with a following of just under 20K, and from TuSubtitulo, a relatively obscure Brazilian TV and film social account (which has leaked Netflix content before, typically getting embargoes before go-live).
The picture in question, which is now available courtesy of that Variety interview (although it did get Hawkins Happenings permanently suspended), shows the Byers family at the Wheelers’ home, enjoying breakfast. At the head of the table is Ted Wheeler, with Karen Wheeler on the opposite end. On the left, we see Jonathan and Nancy alongside Holly Wheeler (who will play a significant role this season), and on the right, Joyce, Will, and Mike.
No word on which episode this is, but given the heat gets turned up to eleven relatively quickly in season 5, we’d expect this to be from early on.
Picture: Netflix
The new promo drops come just days after Ross Duffer finally cleared up all speculation about the runtimes of the new series, sharing a look at the Netflix UI with work-in-progress episodes that reveal the runtimes. As a reminder, those were:
- Chapter One: The Crawl – 1 hour and 8 minutes
- Chapter Two: The Vanishing of Holly Wheeler – 54 minutes
- Chapter Three: The Turnbow Trap – 1 hour and 6 minutes
- Chapter Four: Sorcerer – 1 hour and 23 minutes
Those come after previous posts on Instagram teasing what we can expect from those four episodes:
[Chapter 1] “The Crawl” is our favorite, most eventful first episode since Season 1.
[Chapter 2] “The Vanishing of…” (yeah yeah you think you know who blah blah) has by far the craziest cold open we’ve ever done. One of the sequences we’re most proud of this season.”
[Chapter 3] “The Turnbow Trap” is the most classic Stranger Things-y episode of the season. It’s got all our favorite things. Directed by one of our idols Frank Darabont (Shawshank! Green Mile! Walking Dead!) — who literally came out of retirement for this. He crushed it, obviously.
[Chapter 4] “Sorcerer” is MASSIVE — as big as any finale we’ve ever done, and the most logistically insane shoot of our lives. We’re still recovering.”
Are you excited for the final season of Stranger Things? Let us know in the comments.
Rating: TV-14
