Stranger Things producer shares encouraging filming update on season 5

Stranger Things producer and director Shawn Levy offered up an encouraging update about the upcoming and final season of the hit Netflix original series. Levy told TheWrap that production on Stranger Things season 5 will start “as soon as possible.”

Levy’s comments mark the first time we’ve heard, officially, from anyone involved with Stranger Things that things will be starting immediately after the end of the actors’ strike.

Stranger Things season 5 will start filming “as soon as possible”

In an interview with TheWrap for his new Netflix series, All of the Light We Cannot See, Levy offered status updates on two of his other projects: Stranger Things season 5 and Deadpool 3. In regards to season 5, Levy had this to say:

"“I can say that we are hoping to start filming as soon as possible. We really need the actor’s strike resolved first. The Duffers have been hard at work since the writer strike ended.”"

This is obviously good news for fans of Stranger Things. Production on Stranger Things season 5 was supposed to start in May, but it was shut down because the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP) didn’t offer the writers’ union, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) a deal they could accept. The writers went on strike, and it lasted until the end of September 2023.

So, Stranger Things can start filming now, right? Well, friends don’t lie, so no, sorry, filming can’t get started now.

In July, the AMPTP didn’t offer the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, a deal they could accept, so the actors are now on strike. As of October, the actors are still on strike. Production can’t begin until the strike is over. The Duffer brothers and the Stranger Things writers are back at work, as of the end of September, but the actors aren’t yet.

According to Levy, as soon as the AMPTP gets the actors’ union to agree to a new deal, production on Stranger Things season 5 will begin. That’s the good news!

The bad news is that the actors still don’t have a deal, going on four months now. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to assume that if the strike doesn’t end soon, production won’t start until 2025, which means we’re going to be waiting even longer to watch Stranger Things season 5.

The writers have also been offering their support for the actors on Twitter with hilarious pre-vis clips from Stranger Things like this one:

I think it’s safe to say that everyone is ready to get to work on Stranger Things season 5 just as much or more than we want them to get to work. We know that set construction and other things like that continued throughout the summer and fall, even though they weren’t filming, thanks to investigators on social media.

David Harbour also shared an update before the actors’ strike started. He said that the final season will be filmed for a year, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

So, what’s the best-case scenario for Stranger Things season 5?

The best-case scenario, in my opinion, would be for the actors’ strike to end by the AMPTP giving the actors’ union the deal they are asking for. Then, it would be for production to begin on season 5 before the end of the year. It will take a few weeks to bring everyone back and get things ready to go. With the holidays coming up, it might take even longer to get things rolling. Then, realistically, the beginning of the year would mark the start of filming on season 5.

That’s pretty much the best-case scenario for production starting soon on the fifth season.

After that, we’d hope that the season would be filmed for about a year, as Harbour mentioned, with the cast and crew wrapping production in late 2024. Then, the season would be released about 8-10 months later in the summer or fall of 2025.

Maybe, just maybe, they can speed up that process, but we can’t expect to see Stranger Things season 5 until 2025 at the earliest.

We’ll share more updates about the new season of Stranger Things season 5 soon! Hopefully, we’ll get more information from Levy and the rest of the Stranger Things creative team in time!