Original Plans for STRANGER THINGS Included Eleven Dying in Season 1

Stranger Things is one of my favorite shows to come from Netflix. The stories and characters are amazing. It turns out that there was almost a very different end to the first season. Ross Duffer admitted that Eleven was supposed to sacrifice herself to save everyone from the Demogorgon, but then something changed:

“Eleven was going to sacrifice herself to save the day. That was always the end game.

But once we realized that the show was potentially going to go on longer than one season, we needed to leave it more up in the air, because deep down we knew the show just wouldn’t really work without Eleven. And at that point, we knew how special Millie was. If there was going to be more Stranger Things, Eleven had to come back.”

Eleven wasn’t the only one that was supposed to die but didn’t. Steve was also supposed to die since he was “just supposed to be this giant douchebag.” However, Joe Keery’s performance showed the Duffer Brothers the potential that the character had.

Finally, Sean Astin’s Bob may have died, but it happened much later than originally planned.

“Sean Astin proved so likable that Bob’s death got pushed from episode four to episode eight because we kept wanting to keep him alive. It was important to us and also to Sean to give him a bit of a hero’s death. We wanted him to accomplish something meaningful.”

I’m really grateful that these characters didn’t die as originally planned. Steve’s character has had amazing growth, Bob won our hearts, and Eleven is the star of the show.

Source: NME