The Duffer Bros. Tease a Secret STRANGER THINGS Project and Say the Universe Won’t Expand Like GAME OF THRONES or STAR WARS
Stranger Things might have reached the end of its five-season run, but the world the show created is far from finished as the franchise is clearly still evolving.
Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer are teasing that there’s even more happening behind the scenes, including a secret project they aren’t really allowed to talk about yet. This isn’t the spinoff, that’s already been announced.
Speaking with Entertainment Weekly, Matt explained that the plan moving forward is intentionally measured. “It's just one step at a time,” he said when asked about what’s next for Stranger Things.
“Right now, everything you said is all we have planned... Well, there's one other thing I can't talk about, so I just sort of lied to you, that is also really cool. But the live-action spinoff is what the main focus is right now.”
That mystery project is being kept under tight wraps, but Matt did say: “I wish I could talk about it more, but we have a specific idea or philosophy for how the show and the Stranger Things universe, if you wanna call it that, can continue.
“It's very different, I would say, than something like Game of Thrones or Star Wars, because we're just not like that.”
Ross expanded on that idea, explaining why they don’t want to endlessly fill in tiny story gaps from the original series. “And we're very proud of Tales from '85 and the play, but those are mining the last remaining small gaps in the narrative that we told over the course of Stranger Things.”
“So to be able to move forward, we have to build out a new mythology because otherwise we're just gonna keep finding these little narrow gaps and it's just gonna get narrower and narrower and more forced. So the goal is to break it wide open and do something very new and very different.”
Matt described the process of expanding the franchise in a fresh direction as creatively rewarding, even if details have to stay secret for now. It’s been “exhilarating” to create “new characters and a new mythology,” he said, adding, “I can't wait to say more about it when I'm allowed to, but Netflix PR is listening in.”
While specifics are scarce, one intriguing clue has already surfaced. In a recent interview, the Duffers hinted that a small but strange detail from Stranger Things season 5 will play a major role in the upcoming series.
That detail is the rock Vecna found in a briefcase while exploring the caves as a child, a moment that fans might have overlooked at first, but clearly won’t be insignificant moving forward.
