Summary
- Stranger Things season 5 has begun filming, with a planned release date of 2025.
- New set images reveal the return of familiar cast members such as Finn Wolfhard and Millie Bobby Brown.
- The final season will provide a satisfying and real conclusion to the story, according to David Harbour and the Duffer Brothers.
The end is nigh for Stranger Things as the fifth and final season finally gets filming under way. New set images from what is certain to be one of Netflix’s biggest releases have recently given fans their first look at some of the returning cast, including Finn Wolfhard’s Mike and Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven.
The final season of the hit fantasy horror series has been itching to get cameras rolling, but has been forced to wait patiently for last year’s Hollywood strikes to end and work to move forward on the new scripts. Now, with those issues behind it, Stranger Things 5 is in production, with its eye firmly on a 2025 release date. While there is still a long way to go before fans will get a meaningful look at how the story ends, below you can check out the first glimpses of the returning cast.
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Stranger Things Fans Further Condemn Noah Schnapp After Apology Video
Fans are using the #FireNoahSchnapp hashtag online after the actor posted a TikTok video explaining his side of the story.
Fan Theories About Stranger Things Addressed By The Duffer Brothers
The Duffer Brothers, creators of the Netflix hit series Stranger Things, recently shot down a popular fan theory about the ending of the show. The fifth season of Stranger Things will begin filming in January after production was halted this year thanks to the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes, which saw Hollywood come to a standstill for a few months. This will mark the end of the long-running series which began back in 2016, and has won 80 awards over the last seven years for everything from its writing and acting, to its visual effects and music.
Appearing on the red carpet in London at the West End premiere of Stranger Things: The First Shadow, a stage play based on the series, Matt and Ross Duffer spoke with Metro about the finale of the show, which some believe will see the events in Stranger Things having never taken place in reality. The theory presumes that Vecna, the Mind Flayer, and every other villain in the series was just a long, elaborate game of Dungeons & Dragons that took place inside the heads of the main characters. When presented with this possibility, Matt and his brother Ross laughed, with Matt responding:
“That is correct. That is the ending… No.”
Ross Duffer quickly chimed in to offer a more detailed explanation, effectively shooting down the fan theory ending, while at the same time mentioning that they have known for quite some time how the show is going to end:
“That would be the equivalent of, ‘That’s all a dream.’ No, I assure you that is not how we’re going to end the show. We’ve known where we’ve been going for a while. And we feel comfortable with it; hopefully, it satisfies everyone. We’ll see.”
Stranger Things Season 5 Will Have a ‘Very Real’ Ending
Although the Stranger Things finale won’t hit Netflix until 2025, and details remain scarce at this time, star David Harbour, who has portrayed Jim Hopper since its debut, has promised viewers that the series is going to end in a very real way, and complete the story they started so many years ago back in the Hawkins National Laboratory. Harbour touched on the ending of Stranger Things while appearing on a panel at the Motor City Comic Con back in November 2023, saying:
“The beauty of it is there’s a real ending — things will end in a very real way…Netflix is gonna do spin-offs… but the storyline where we started in the lab and Upside Down is one complete story.”
In addition to Harbour promising a true ending to Stranger Things, rather than the fan theory that suggests it was all a long D&D game, The Duffer Brothers have also gone on record saying that the final season will be “like season one on steroids,” and feature the main cast members interacting with one another more after being split apart for the majority of season four. Stranger Things executive producer and director, Shawn Levy, has also added to that sentiment, saying, “Stranger Things 5 is as big as any of the biggest movies that we see.”
Stranger Things season five will see Noah Schnapp, Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Gates Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke and Priah Ferguson all return to reprise their respective roles, and while new cast members for the finale season are being kept under wraps for now, it has been confirmed that Terminator star Linda Hamilton will be joining the crew in Hawkins, Indiana.
