The Writers Guild of America strike in Hollywood is said to have delayed filming.
The last episode of the fourth season of “Stranger Things” was released in May 2022. Now rumors of a delayed start date for the fifth and final season are making the rounds. Due to the prevailing writer’s strike in Hollywood, filming is likely to be delayed, so that the story of the Hawkins residents cannot be continued until 2025 at the earliest – three years after the last episode aired. Fans of the mystery series show no understanding and are extremely upset.
The excitement was sparked by the X-post from a popular insider account of the Netflix series, called “Stranger News”. In the caption of the article, which shows a fan art poster by the artist Axel Almiron, it is written in capital letters “The End is Coming. 2025. #StrangerThings,” which in German means “The end is near. 2025.” is called. Although the streaming service has not yet officially confirmed anything and the fan art poster is not a licensed product, there is an uproar in the comments section of the post. Fans of science fiction apparently expected the next season a year earlier.
“2025?? “That’s probably a joke,” writes an X user. Another jokes, referring to the age of the actors: “These children will be 30 by then.” However, a few users point out to the community that the delay has a good reason.
Since May 2023, Hollywood writers have been on strike at the “Writers Guild of America” and are demanding higher wages and profit sharing as well as fixed author quotas in production. A preliminary agreement is said to have just been reached.
But the creators of the series, the Duffer Brothers, have already announced that filming would be paused until the strike ends. “The Duffers here. The writing doesn’t stop when filming begins,” the directors wrote in an X post on May 6. “We look forward to starting production with our great cast and crew, but that is not possible during the strike. We hope a fair agreement will be reached soon so we can all get back to work. Until then – over and out.”
Shortly after the announcement, however, members of the “Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists” – “SAG-AFTRA” for short – also went on strike, which meant that many actors in the series were unable to appear in front of the camera. So far no agreement has been found on this front. The show’s producers announced that filming would take about a year. Added to this is the time-consuming editing of the series. A start date in 2025 is therefore realistic.
Nevertheless, the Duffer brothers gave a little hint about what viewers can expect from the final season. The series is apparently set to return to its strong foundation from the first season. “That’s what we expect and hope to do, keep the series in Hawkins. “It’s going to feel a lot bigger than the first season,” Matt Duffer tells host Josh Horowitz in a 2022 episode of the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast. “We want to go back to a lot of the things that we did in the first season and a lot of the original groupings and pairings that we had in the first season.” And until that happens, Stranger Things fans will have to be comfortable Wait a little longer until you see Millie Bobby Brown, Noah Schnapp, David Harbor and Co. on the screen again.