Stranger Things creators call season 4 their ‘Game of Thrones season’

Season four of ‘Stranger Things’ will be the longest season so far

The creators of Stranger Things are calling the forthcoming new series their “Game of Thrones season”.

Production for season four began in early 2020, following an announcement from Netflix that its creators, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, had signed onto a new multi-year TV and film deal with the streaming giant.

Season three ended with the Byers family leaving Hawkins and hints at a plot in Russia for Hopper, creating an expansive storyline with characters scattered across the globe.

Season three also attracted a record-breaking 40.7 million households streaming the show on Netflix in the first four days of its release.

Speaking to Deadline, Matt Duffer said this week: “We jokingly call it our Game of Thrones season because it’s so spread out.”

He also confirmed that series four will be released in two volumes on 27 May and 1 July 2022, marking the longest season yet, with nine episodes all over an hour long.

“That’s one reason it’s taken so long [to produce]. It does have this sort of epic quality to it,” he explained.

Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in ‘Stranger Things’ (Netflix)

Matt also provided an update on the whereabouts of the show’s main characters: “Joyce and the Byers family have left at the end of season three – they are in California. We’ve always wanted to have that ET-esque suburb aesthetic, which we finally got to do this year in the desert.

“Then we have Hopper in Russia, and then of course we have a group remaining in Hawkins. So we have these three storylines, all connected and interwoven together, but it’s just very different tones.”

Stranger Things will end with season five. Set in the 1980s, season four creeps closer to star Winona Ryder’s real-world meteoric rise in Beetlejuice, which the Stranger Things teens would certainly go to the movies to see.

“That’s the threshold we can’t cross, which is once Winona is a superstar in the world,” Matt Duffer said. “The show has to stop, because [the kids’ heads] will spontaneously combust or something.”

“That’s the final scene,” Ross Duffer jokingly added. “The kids go to see Beetlejuice and their heads explode.”

Season four of Stranger Things will be released on Netflix in two volumes on 27 May and 1 July 2022. The first three seasons are available to stream now.