Matt and Ross Duffer, the brothers who serve as creators and showrunners for one of the most successful original series to emerge from Netflix, appear set to once again give us eight episodes to enjoy when Stranger Things season four finally arrives.
We don’t have an official release date yet, but Netflix has at least shared a teaser for the new season so we definitely know it’s coming. Meanwhile, though, a new report from TVLine has teased out what it says are new, exclusive details that have been confirmed — including the fact that we’re in store for eight episodes again, the same number we got in seasons one and three of Stranger Things.
Among the other tantalizing details revealed in this new report, we’re told that shooting would begin in January and wrap up around August or so — which would seem to preclude a summer 2020 return, which is what we got last time with the July 4 release of Season 3.
But let’s stop for a moment and assume that shooting schedule is correct.
Given the post-production work involved in the show, that means it’s not outside the realm of possibility that the show might not be ready to premiere until sometime in 2021, which is not good news at all. But here’s the other thing to consider:
Courtesy of a completely separate leak from what purports to be the Stranger Things set and which has been shared widely on Reddit, some eagle-eyed sleuths have reported that filming on the new season has actually already begun. Complete with photos of what appears to be Hopper’s 1980 Chevy K5 Blazer:
Hopper's car was spotted on the set of season 4👀👀👀
(via reddit/StrangerThings) pic.twitter.com/jn6pXPuEwd
— UPROXX (@UPROXX) October 17, 2019
That, of course, lit up the Internet, giving fans at least a shred of hope that maybe one of the show’s most popular characters didn’t die at the end of season three after all. Even David Harbour, the actor who portrays Hopper, thinks (hopes?) the character is still alive and somehow survived his and Joyce Byers’ effort to close the gateway to the Upside Down. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves.
That set leak photo above, if true, would seem to suggest the shooting schedule TVLine published is wrong. And there also some other things to consider:
There is the possibility the Reddit photo depicts some sort of pre-work, in which case the TVLine schedule is correct. But if you dive into the Reddit comments where that photo originated (check out the thread here) one commenter says a crew member told him the work isn’t for Stranger Things at all:
Even that comment about Blue Bayou, though, could have been a bit of misdirection. We refer you back to episode six of season two, in which we see Murray cooking breakfast for Nancy and Jonathan. The song playing in that scene?
Why, none other than Roy Orbison’s version of a little ditty called Blue Bayou.
All that said, here’s hoping Netflix confirms the big details soon that everyone is waiting on, especially the season four release date.
