Rumor: Filming on Stranger Things season 4 starts in unexpected location

Stranger Things is easily one of the most buzzed-about shows on Netflix, and never more since the the third season, which ended with some game-changing events. If you haven’t watched it, beware SPOILERS below.

Probably the biggest of these events was the death of Sheriff Jim Hopper, who died trying to stop a Russian plot to open a portal to the grim Upside Down dimension deep beneath the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana. Devastating as that was, I don’t think many fans really thought Hopper was gone for good. A lot of them point to the season’s post-credits scene, which takes place in a Russian prison. One jailor mentions an “American” in one of the cells. Did Hopper somehow survive the debacle beneath the Starcourt Mall and end in a Siberian jail?

We’ll find out for sure when season 4 debuts on Netflix, but a recent rumor lends some support to this theory. News site Murphy’s Multiverse claims to have info on two things: first, filming on season 4 will start either late this month or early next month, which tracks with earlier reports of production starting up in January 2020 (and ending in August). Second, Murphy’s claims that shooting will begin not in Atlanta, where the bulk of production on the show is done, but in Lithuania, a former Soviet state where HBO filmed its Chernobyl miniseries.

Why might Netflix opt to shoot Stranger Things in Lithuania? There are a lot of potential reasons, but it might be to get that authentic 1980s Soviet Union feel, useful if you have scenes set in a Russian prison. And who might be in that Russian prison? You see where we’re going with this.

After the shoot in Lithuania, filming will continue as usual in Atlanta, according to Murphy’s. We’ll be watching to see if anything else develops.

Wherever Netflix shoots season 4, it’ll probably be a while before we see it. With a show as elaborate as this one, 2021 seems a safe bet, although the official Twitter account for the Stranger Things writers did hint that it might come earlier on New Year’s Eve:

Does that mean the next season will premiere in 2020, or just get made in 2020? Or both? More as it breaks.

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