According to Deadline, Netflix has announced three new cast members for the upcoming fifth and final season of Stranger Things: Nell Fisher (Evil Dead Rise, My Life Is Murder), Jake Connelly (Between the Silence) and Alex Breaux (The Dead Don’t Hurt, Waco: The Aftermath).
To mark the midway point of filming for season five, Netflix has released a behind-the-scenes video featuring the new trio, fellow newcomer Linda Hamilton (The Terminator, Resident Alien), and the returning cast of Stranger Things. Check it out below!
The video reveals hints of what happened after the catastrophic disaster in the season four finale, with the Upside Down starting to invade Hawkins. Nevertheless, the town, including Hawkins High School, looks relatively untouched.
The Duffer Brothers (Hidden, Wayward Pines) serve as co-creators, co-showrunners and executive producers. Ross Duffer shared an Instagram post on July 3 to celebrate the halfway mark of season five production. “Week 24. Happy halfway to the best cast and crew ever,” reads the caption of the post. The following slide in the post features Finn Wolfhard (It, Ghostbusters: Afterlife), who portrays Mike Wheeler, placing the marble in the jar to signify the end of the week.
As reported by Deadline, the Duffer Brothers have clarified on the Happy Sad Confused Podcast that the episodes of season five won’t be as long as they were in season four.
“The only reason we don’t expect to be as long is, this season, if you look at it, it’s almost a two-hour ramp up before our kids really get drawn into a supernatural mystery. You get to know them, you get to see them in their lives, they’re struggling with adapting to high school and so forth, Steve’s trying to find a date, all of that. None of that is obviously going to be occurring [in season 5],” Matt Duffer said.
Season five will mark the end of Stranger Things, but the franchise lives on. There’s a stage production titled Stranger Things: The First Shadow in London’s West End and an untitled animated spinoff series being developed by Netflix.
Stranger Things was renewed for its fifth and final season around February 2022, three months before the premiere of season four.