Stranger Things 4 Reportedly Beginning Production in Lithuania

It’s but a matter of time before principal photography begins on the fourth season of Stranger Things and according to one popular scooper, initial production will take place overseas. According to scooping ace Charles Murphy (via his Murphy’s Multiverse blog), the fourth outing of Stranger Things will begin filming at the same Lithuanian prison set used by HBO’s Chernobyl. As Murphy states, there’s currently no public start date for production, but he notes the Lithuanian filming will take place first before everything moves to Atlanta, where production for the first three seasons took place.

Thinking back to the closing moments of Stranger Things 3, it would seem the prison sequence fans saw ever-so-briefly will be a big part of the story in the upcoming season. Though we don’t know who exactly the American being held at the Russian facility is, one fan-favorite theory is that Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) was somehow teleported there.

When asked about a return last December, Harbour himself played coy on the topic, stopping short of revealing if he would be returning for sure.

“I think Hopper — from the very beginning I’ve said this — he’s very lovable in a certain way, but also, he’s kind of a rough guy,” Harbour said at a convention appearance at German Comic Con Dortmund. “Certainly in the beginning of Season 1 he’s kind of dark, and he’s drinking, and he’s trying to kill himself, and he hates himself for what happened to his daughter. I feel like, in a sense, that character needed to die. He needed to make some sacrifice to make up for the way he’s been living for the past like 10 years, the resentments that he’s had. So he needed to die.”

He added, “Now whether or not there is this second act, whether or not there is some sort of resurrection, whether or not we can see him go off in a certain way, would be really interesting to me. I would love it,” he said. “Anybody watch Lord of the Rings? Gandalf the Grey fights the Balrog, descends into darkness, battles him forever, and everyone thinks he’s dead. And then he re-emerges as Gandalf the White, with sort of a new strength and a new power. That would be an interesting arc for him.”

The first three seasons of Stranger Things are now streaming on Netflix.