Stranger Things Creators Confirm Story Will Have Time-Jump for Season 5

Between Seasons 3 and 4 of Stranger Things, only six months is said to have passed, but in reality, it took three years for the new season to debut, due to delays caused by the coronavirus pandemic. Creators of the series Matt and Ross Duffer have confirmed that they have an outline of how the upcoming final season of the series will unfold, though they also pointed out that the original plan would have been to should Seasons 4 and 5 back to back, though they have since adjusted their plans and a time-jump will occur following the end of Season 4 and the start of Season 5.

“I’m sure we will do a time jump,” Ross Duffer shared with TVLine. “Ideally, we’d have shot [Seasons 4 and 5] back to back, but there was just no feasible way to do that. So these are all discussions we’re going to have with our writers when we start the room up … Believe it or not, we’re still working on Season 4. We’re trying to finish the final two episodes, they’re so massive.”

While the delays for Season 4 were surely frustrating not only for the creators, but also audiences, those setbacks did provide the unique opportunity to spend more time finishing the scripts for this season, resulting in the most massive season yet. The first seven episodes of Season 4 all exceed 70 minutes, while the final two episodes of the season are said to have a combined run time of four hours.

“We learn a lot every time we make a [season],” Matt Duffer pointed out. “We’ve learned a lot just working with all of our new actors and the ones that we’ve worked with for a long time over this year [making Season 4], so I’m sure it’ll change a little bit from that outline. The ending is the hard thing.”

He added, “That’s obviously the stressful thing. We really want to stick the landing.”

As far as when the final season could start shooting, it seems like even the Duffers don’t quite have an answer for that yet.

“I’m not sure we’re ready to say yet a start date for shooting,” Matt admitted. “But a lot of it is pretty well mapped out.”  

Stranger Things Season 4 – Volume 1 is now streaming on Netflix, and Stranger Things Season 4 – Volume 2 will premiere on July 1st.

Are you looking forward to the final season? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!