‘Stranger Things’ Cast and Directors Tease Season Two

The cast and the creative team behind the Netflix smash hit Stranger Things were in attendance at the BAFTA Tea Party as well as the Golden Globes this weekend. While everyone was careful not to reveal anything about the upcoming sequel season which will drop on Netflix later this year, we did get a few interesting tidbits regarding the follow-up.

Executive Producer and Director Shawn Levy reiterated what we’ve already heard while promising Stranger Things 2 will continue to deliver the same magical Spielberg-like storytelling established in the first season telling Vanity Fair:

“Season 2 is bigger and potentially darker in its stakes. The threat, which in Season 1 was to Will Byers, has grown. That’s all I’m going to say! But, I will say Season 2 has a bigger cast and is definitely loyal to the kind of magical storytelling that we established in the first season. It’s character-based and still about our core group of characters.”

Finn Wolfhard, the brilliant 14-year old actor behind Mike Wheeler, talked about the advantage the actors now have knowing who their characters are and how growing up a little bit since the first season is going to help them evolve in season two:

“Now that we’ve done a season, we know exactly about our characters. We are very conscious of them and can take them to the next level. I think we’ve grown up a little bit, and our characters have too. They have been through a lot and have used those experiences to help them grow and to be stronger in Season 2.”

Possibly the most interesting bit of information came from The Duffer Brothers themselves. While speaking to The Hollywood Reporter on the red carpet at the Golden Globes, Matt Duffer revealed that one of the clues dropped in the announcement trailer for season two has changed:

“This is very cryptic but one of the clues in the teaser has changed because casting.”

My best guess is that the final episode of season two titled “The Lost Brother” is now “The Lost Sister” with the casting of Danish actress Linnea Berthelsen, who plays Roman: an emotionally damaged, magnetic young woman who suffered a great loss as a child. Although she does not live in Hawkins, she is mysteriously connected to the supernatural events at the lab. I’m probably wrong but my theory is that Roman was originally conceived of as a male character. Matt Duffer said the change came due to casting and other than “Mad Max”, “The Boy Who Came Back to Life”, and “The Pollywog”, there aren’t any other titles besides “The Lost Brother” that refer to a character. “The Pollywog” remains a mystery but it’s safe to say nothing has changed regarding the first two episode titles.

Stranger Things 2 picks up a year later in the fall of 1984 and will explore the consequences of Will Byers’ week spent in the upside down as well as the interdimensional portal which is still open at the Department of Energy. The characters are said to be struggling with the desire to return to a sense of normalcy and maybe the impossibility of it.

The series has added Sean Astin (The Goonies, Lord of the Rings), Paul Reiser (Aliens, Mad About You), Linnea Berthelsen, Dacre Montgomery (Power Rangers), broadway star Sadie Sink, and Brett Gelman (Jobs). You can check out descriptions of their characters here. The new characters are said to be compelling but first and foremost in service to the core group of characters introduced in season one.

Stranger Things 2 stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb Mclaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, and Noah Schnapp.

Stranger Things 2 hits Netflix sometime in 2017.

#GoldenGlobes: @Stranger_Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer ✨ pic.twitter.com/4m9dBlBTmu

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) January 8, 2017

SOURCES: THR, VANITY FAIR

Shawn Levy Talks ‘Stranger Things 3’; Charlie Heaton Teases Bigger, Darker Second Season

Just last Friday it was officially confirmed that Millie Bobby Brown would be returning for the sequel to Netflix’s smash hit Stranger Things. At an event screening for 2011’s Real Steel, executive producer Shawn Levy spoke with Collider, revealing The Duffer Brothers and himself are already looking ahead as to where they want to go once the show is renewed for a third season.

Levy:

We are not gonna be caught off guard and we don’t wanna be making stuff up like the day before we have to write it and make it, so we are definitely optimistic and we have started thinking ahead.

The Duffers have already said in the past that that do have an ending for the series in mind, it’s just a matter of how long it takes to get there.

Back at the end of August when the second season was announced, a total of nine chapter headings were revealed in an official teaser for the follow-up, extending the episode count by one more than the first season. With an additional episode in the mix, as well as a bigger budget allowing for better, more polished visual effects it would only make sense for the production to take a little longer than the first season. Levy was unable to speculate on a release date but did offer some insight:

That I can’t say. I do have a sense of it. It was promised when we announced that we were picked up for Season 2 and we gave those chapter headings, I believe it ended with ‘Coming in 2017’ and that much is true. You can do a little bit of math, we’re not magicians so there’s no way it launches in Spring since I just admitted we started filming today, and we’re doing nine.

Stranger Things possessed the DNA of a Steven Spielberg blockbuster smashed together with a Stephen King summer read so it would be disappointing if the sequel isn’t able to make it’s debut in the summer of 2017, however. No doubt would the sci-fi horror mystery adventure be a perfect fit for a release around Halloween, although the wait would be excruciating. But if it means a better product, I think we can all manage.

Season two will pick up a year later in the fall of 1984 and explore the consequences of Will Byers’ week spent in the upside down, and the portal that is still open at the Department of Energy. Levy offered some further insight into just exactly what Will and the Byers family, as well as his friends, will be struggling with when we pick up with them a year later.

“I’m not gonna say how much time has gone by. It is not the next day, I’ll say that. And there are several new characters who I think several of them are going to be new fan-favorites because they’re great, great new characters. But we are definitely sticking primarily with our core group, and what is different, how are they changed from the experience of last season… maybe ‘normal’ is never possible again.”

The second season will see several new characters added into the mix. Just yesterday it was announced that Sean Astin (The Goonies), Paul Reiser (Aliens), and Danish actress Linnea Berthelsen will be joining the cast along with newcomers Dacre Montgomery (Power Rangers) and Sadie Sink.

Levy also added that he would be in the Directors seat for the third and fourth episodes this year, just as he was in the first season.

Yes, we are a little superstitious so just like last year, they’re doing 1 and 2, I’m going in and doing 3 and 4. So the first four are gonna kick off exactly the same as last time… I am going to start prepping right around Thanksgiving and I’ll be filming my episodes through December and January.

But it doesn’t stop there, actor Charlie Heaton is also currently promoting his new film, Shut In. While speaking to Entertainment Tonight, Heaton offered some insight into the scope of the second season while assuring it is still very much the same Hawkins, Indiana we were introduced to in the first season. The actor teased the fourth episode titled “The Palace” (directed by Levy) will be huge. My hope is that “The Palace” is actually some sort of reference to Pankot Palace as The Duffers already mentioned Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as a major influence. It would be a dream come true of mine to see The Goonies dropped into the mineshaft chase sequence from the end of Temple of Doom.

The adventure continues in the fall of 1984.

Stranger Things 2 hits Netflix sometime in 2017.

SOURCES: COLLIDER, ET

‘Stranger Things 2’ Early Set Photo

It’s happening! For most people, this is nothing of importance so don’t get too excited but for someone who is counting down the seconds until The Duffer Brothers call action on set, this has me pretty pumped.

Thanks to Reddit user mondaymillionare, we have a look at the trailers set up ready to host the actors as they create what will hopefully be another magical experience for audiences. The photo was taken today in Jackson, Georgia which serves as the fictional settings of Hawkins, Indiana.

What we know:

The second season will pick up a year post the events of season one in the fall of 1984 and will feature the return of the entire original cast plus several new additions, two of which were recently announced. The story will deal directly with the portal that is still open to the upside down and how Will has been affected by his time spent there. Things are still up in the air with the return of Eleven but she’s definitely returning. You don’t create an iconic character like that and kill her off after one season. Plus if she was gone for good, I think the Duffers would be pretty up front about that. Their reluctance whether or not to tell us if Eleven is returning signals to me that we will see her again.

Oh, but Barb is dead. Seriously, she is not coming back, however. The show will deliver some form of ‘Justice For Barb’ to satisfy audiences frustrations with the lack of acknowledgment over the loss of Barb in the first season.

The second season begins production sometime in the next two weeks.

Stranger Things 2 will hit Netflix sometime in 2017.

Duffer Brothers Talk Rejection and Success in Hollywood at SXSL

On Sunday, the American Film Institute welcomed artists of the 3^rd Annual White House Student Film Festival to premiere over 700 short films all centered on one theme: The World I Want to Live In. The students were joined by special guests Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer, Executive Producers Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen, and cast member Millie Bobby Brown.

The Duffers discussed the challenges they faced for years in Hollywood and how they eventually came to develop the pilot script for Stranger Things:

Matt: 

You’re going to all these studios and these producers and you’re pitching. And you know, all we got was no, no, no… And people are super rude in Hollywood. There’s a ton of no’s and a lot of rejection. Because you come out really excited and it’s just doors getting slammed in your face over and over again and we started to freak out a little bit because it felt for a moment it felt actually impossible.

 Ross:

 We had like a month of money left. And we huddled in our small apartment and we decided to do something we haven’t done. Which is like, we’re just going to write something that we would want to see. Not what we think other people want or what other people think is cool, or what what’s the in-thing in the industry right now. We’re like lets just write something for ourselves.

It would still be some time before The Duffers would find success. Their passion project, Hidden was not received well by the studio resulting in The Duffers having to go back to the drawing board.

The Duffers went on to add that even after they developed the script, look book, and a fake trailer for Stranger (formerly known as Montauk), they still had a hard time getting network executives to see the project the way they saw it but the brothers didn’t give up.

Matt: 

The reason we’re telling you all of this is to try, as much as possible, to tell stories that mean something to you. That matter to you. Tell stories that you want to see out in the world. And I know it sounds easy now but as you get out there in Los Angeles or New York, it’s very easy to kind of lose your way. I mean the phrase ‘chase your dream,’ I don’t think you should chase the dream at all. I think you should chase the feeling you have when you’re making these movies. The way that makes you feel when you’re making something that you love, you should chase that feeling. And I really believe if you do that and you stay true to yourself, and stay true to that then the dream will then follow.

The two then were joined by Executive Producers Shawn Levy and Dan Cohen. The script resonated for Cohen immediately in the same way it did for audiences. Levy described what it was like when Cohen walked into his office with the script for Stranger Things:

You need to stop what you’re doing. You need to read this script. Because there is something special here. These are voices that need to be heard.

Last but not least, Millie Bobby Brown came on stage and talked about what it was it was like to play the intensely emotional character of Eleven with such little dialogue.

You have to express yourself without talking. There would be times where I didn’t know what to do with the scene. I couldn’t cry sometimes and I’d ask the Duffers to just tell me something to make me cry! 

Levy also mentioned how Millie had the courage to ask to do another take after production had already began to move on from a scene:

Thats really rare. For an actor to have the kind of strength to stop and slow down the train to say ‘I think I can do better.’ But even at this young age Millie had a sense of her powers and her abilities as an actor and we who directed the show were smart enough to follow the talent and the instincts of the performer and those are the takes that ended up in the show. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t learn any new information regarding Stranger Things 2 beyond what we already know. The story will take place a year later in the fall of 1984 and will deal with the portal that is still open to the upside down.

Stranger Things 2  hits Netflix sometime in 2017.

QUOTES EDITED FOR BREVITY.

SOURCE: WHITEHOUSE.GOV, YOUTUBE

Noah Schnapp Talks ‘Stranger Things 2’, Filming Challenges and Fan Response

In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Noah Schnapp who played Will Byers in Stranger Things dishes on what it was like to film some of Will’s biggest scenes, the fan response, and what he would like to see for Will in season two.

My guess is that maybe he’s going to become evil in the next season. If he’s coughing up these baby Demogorgons, or eggs, or something, maybe he’s incubating or holding these eggs inside of him and he’s trying to fight his good side against his bad side in the next season. That would be cool to see, to see him become evil. 

What do you guys think? Does Will have powers like Eleven? How long will it be before we see him use his powers? Or is it possible that we already did when the wall opened up revealing Will in the upside down?

Noah also spoke of his relationship with his co-stars and what it was like to work with Winona Ryder.

From the start, I knew she was a great person. There were so many moments where she was like my real mom. We were doing a CPR scene and she came up to me with a packet of gum. She gave me a piece, looked me right in the eye and said, “This is so our breath doesn’t smell bad.” Mr. [David] Harbour [who plays Chief Jim Hopper] had to push really hard on my chest, and she went up to my mom to make sure that it was okay. She was just really sweet.

In the weeks following its debut, Stranger Things rose to the top of the most popular shows on IMDB. The internet exploded with fan art, reaction videos on YouTube, and a plethora of unofficial T-shirts on sites like Teefury and TeePublic. Noah talked a little bit about what it’s like to now be recognized on the street. It’s so nice to see these little stars achieve their dreams while remaining humble and grateful for their early success.

When I’m with the other cast, going to interviews, like we did in New York City, people do recognize us. I like meeting fans. It’s amazing to me. Without them, the show wouldn’t be what it is. It’s amazing to meet them and see what they’re all like.

It will be a while before us fans have any concrete information regarding the next season. Stranger Things 2 is set to start filming towards the end of October, early November set for a release sometime in 2017.

To read the full interview head on over to THR.

SOURCE: THR

Shawn Levy On Why ‘Stranger Things’ is a Pop-Culture Phenomenon

In an interview posted this past Tuesday by Take Two, Executive Producer Shawn Levy discusses his experience producing the Netflix Original Series Stranger Things and why the show has become a pop-culture phenomenon.

The world felt safer. The world, and it breaks my heart to say this, but the world was safer. And I know that a lot of us yearn for the relative innocence of that– And I do think that the show transports us back to a cultural and global climate that was fundamentally more comforting. It was fundamentally less scary.

Levy also describes season two as “next level” but will still service the shows core characters. The show will grow along with its young cast.

It’s clear Levy was inspired by The Duffer Brothers and the pilot script for Stranger Things immediately. Inspiration seems to be the word coming from everyones mouth involved with the show. From the editors to the production designer, The Duffers brought out the best in everyone resulting in the magical experience that is Stranger Things. 

To listen to the full interview head on over to Take Two.

SOURCE: SCPR