Stranger Things is about to get a little stranger, according to co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer.
In an interview with IGN, the directing siblings outlined their early plans for the show’s sophomore season which, despite waiting on the official green light from Netflix, is creeping closer and closer to pre-production. It’s shaping up to be “a little darker and a little weirder” than its forebear, and will take place in the year 1984 – a full year after the demogorgon was seemingly sent packing and the residents of Hawkins resumed their daily routine.
When pressed about Stranger Things season 2, the Duffer brothers were understandably coy, instead pointing to the major pop culture milestones of the time.
We like thinking of these as movies, and it’s going to feel very different, and I’m sure that a lot of people are going to prefer Season 1, but I think a lot of people will prefer Season 2, because I think it’s going to be a little darker, and a little weirder. I think we feel like we have a license to go a little weirder in this season, so that’s been a lot of fun. We’re going to have a bit more VFX to play around with. We’re really excited about it. 1984 was a f**king amazing year, especially the movies that came out in the summer of 1984 – it was just a great year for pop culture. Ghostbusters just came out, Temple of Doom, Karate Kid, Gremlins – it was an awesome year for cinema, so we’re trying, hopefully, to capture a little bit of the magic of those films.
They’ll play a small part in influencing the tone of Stranger Things season 2, which is being angled as a sequel replete with a standalone story.
It was important in Season 1 that we have this very clear tension – Will Byers goes missing and it’s about finding him and bringing him back. And we resolved that main tension, obviously. There are lingering questions, but the idea with Season 2 is there’s a new tension and the goal is can the characters resolve that tension by the end. So it’s going to be its own sort of complete little movie, very much in the way that Season 1 is.
Stranger Things season 2 is still waiting on the go-ahead from the Powers That Be – although when it does land, it’ll seemingly herald justice for Barb.