Stranger Things producer explains why season 4 is taking so long

It’s been over two years since fans gotten to watch new episodes of Stranger Things on Netflix, two years since we’ve visited the sleepy town of Hawkins, IN, which is nice except for all the inter-dimensional beings wont to pop out of the air and disembowel you.

Why the long wait? Producer and director Shawn Levy explained it to Collider. “It is a kind of perfect storm combination of COVID shutdown, slower pace of filming in COVID protocols and health protocols, which are necessary, and coincidentally we chose Season 4 to be by far — and I mean, by far, far, far — the most ambitious of the seasons.”

"It’s already known that, as the pandemic was starting, I was over in Lithuania with David Harbour shooting that piece that revealed Hopper’s alive. So you kind of know we’ve got some action in Hawkins, we’ve got some action apparently in Russia, and we have an entire storyline set elsewhere that will soon come to light. So this is the first season where we have this sprawling geography, multiple location shoots, and we’re doing it all against a backdrop of a world that has made filming slower longer in delay. So that’s why it’s taking so long."

Even the teaser that revealed that Hopper was alive and (somehow) in Russia is over a year old now:

“The reason Stranger Things take[s] so long is everything is handmade by a very small group of us,” Levy continued. “The brothers, they want to direct a certain number of episodes every year, I have to direct my episodes every year. We have to be in the edit room and lay hands on all of it ourselves. If you look at the show, there’s no like 12 executive producers. It’s still a very small group and the controls are rigorous on each episode and on anything that the franchise does, whether it’s the drive-through experience in LA or a Nike sneaker that was put out in the summer of 2019, we see and approve it all.”

“The brothers” would be showrunners Matt and Ross Duffer. I’m intrigued by the idea that there’s “an entire storyline set elsewhere that will soon come to light” — we know there’s stuff in Hawkins with the kids, we know Hopper is in Russia, but where else might we visit? Might it have something to do with the other children who were experimented on and given powers like Eleven? Netflix hinted in another teaser that we’ll be getting more about that story:

Stranger Things season 4 release date

If there’s a silver lining to all of this, it’s that filming is nearly done, as long as it’s taken. “I have been, along with the brothers, we have been kind of tag-teaming it and directing it as recently as now,” Levy said. “So not quite done filming. [We’ll be done] imminently. All I can say is by the time this airs, we’ll at least have given the world a ballpark. And I’m not allowed to say more. By the time Free Guy comes out, August 13th, part of that answer will be known.”

Free Guy, which Shawn Levy directed, is out next week, so we’ll know something by then.

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h/t SyFy Wire