Sometime this year, we'll finally get to watch the fifth and final season of Stranger Things, Netflix's flagship science fiction series about a bunch of kids who fight off the monsters of a twisted dimension called the Upside Down. Stranger Things season 4 ended on a wild cliffhanger, with the Upside Down spilling into the sleepy town of Hawkins, Indiana. How will the gang get out of this one?
It won't be too long before we find out, but for actors like Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler on all five seasons of Stranger Things, the end has already come. Wolfhard filmed his final scene on Stranger Things in December; the show has officially wrapped production, and now it heads into post-production where all the special effects magic and editing happen.
Wolfhard is currently out on the press trail promoting his upcoming A24 film The Legend of Ochi, but Variety couldn't resist asking him about Stranger Things as well. How does he feel about the show which kick-started his career wrapping up? What was his final day on set like?
“It was incredibly emotional, obviously,” Wolfhard replied. “It’s the last 10 years of my life. Also for the creators, the Duffer Bros. started when they were 30 and now they are 40. Everyone had a long journey and shared it together. My whole childhood was there. It was sort of the Toy Story 3 moment of leaving your toys behind. It was really special.”
Wolfhard also talked a bit about the extensive shoot for Stranger Things 5, which started on January 8, 2024 and ran all the way to December 20, a massive filming period by any standard.
“We had a long last year,” he said. “We shot sort of Lord of the Rings style with a year-long shoot. It was a great way to go out and very intense. I feel like it couldn’t have ended better. [‘The Legend of Ochi’] is the first movie that I’m promoting since, so it feels like post-graduation or something. I am excited for everything to come out.”
It's exciting to hear that Wolfhard is happy with how Stranger Things ended, and I love the nod to The Lord of the Rings. Peter Jackson famously filmed all three of those movies at the same time over the course of around a year and a half.
The Legend of Ochi delayed until April 25
Of course, Wolfhard wasn't out to promote Stranger Things in that interview, but his new movie The Legend of Ochi. The film stars Helena Zengel as a young girl named Yuri, who lives on a remote island where she encounters a fearsome beast of legend: the ochi. Except the ochi who Yuri meets is a baby, and instead of being scared of it she decides it's pretty cute and in need of a helping hand to get back home. The ochi itself is the result of puppetry and animatronics, which Wolfhard found refreshing after the extensive visual effects work of Stranger Things.
“It makes our jobs easier,” he said. “It really feels like you’re interacting with something. Working with practical effects is better. Obviously, there are great visual effects and you interact with a tennis ball and it ends up being amazing still, but there’s something to be said about amazing craftsmanship, and being able to feel that in a scene really helps.”
In addition to Wolfhard and Zengel, The Legend of Ochi also stars Willem Dafoe and Dune: Prophecy's Emily Watson. It was originally due out in theaters on February 28, but due to the Los Angeles wild fires it has been pushed back to April 25. As for Stranger Things 5, word on the street is we'll be watching it sometime in the fall.
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