Stranger Things Star Reveals Major Changes to Netflix Series Made Before Filming Began

It’s been nearly three years since the third season of Stranger Things was released on Netflix, and fans are eager to find out what’s next for their favorite kids from Hawkins. The upcoming fourth season will be split in two and followed by a fifth and final season, ending the journey that made so many young actors famous. One such young star is Gaten Matarazzo, who plays Dustin Henderson on the series. During a recent chat with Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside You podcast, Matarazzo revealed that Stranger Things originally had a different title, filming location, and was meant to be a mini-series. 

“I took the job thinking it was gonna film in Long Island, three hours from my house,” Matarazzo shared. “It was gonna be a mini-series, I was gonna be in like three or four episodes and then I signed on and they were like, ‘So change of plans. It’s gonna film in North Carolina,’ and then a month later they’re like, ‘Change of plans it’s gonna film in Atlanta, Georgia and it’s not Montauk anymore it’s called Stranger Things.’ I was like, ‘That’s cool. Cool name, but why’d you change it?’ And it turns out there was this whole like lawsuit thing that went down like it even resurfaced after the show, I think the same guy or a different guy tried to come forward saying that his idea was stolen for the show even though like it was based on historical events, but there was already a book series called The Montauk Project that was based on the potential government experiments done at Camp Hero and so they weren’t allowed to use that because of licensing purposes.”

You can check out Matarazzo’s chat with Rosenbaum below:

Recently, Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler) spoke with ScreenRant and teased that the new season of Stranger Things is both the funniest and scariest one yet. 

“I think because we’ve all grown and gotten a little older; we’re not teenagers anymore, and all of us are young adults. Every season [creators] the Duffers have been like going into scarier and pretty violent territory. This season is going to be easily the darkest season,” Wolfhard shared. “It’s weird, because they amp up everything every season. And so it’s the funniest season. It has one of the funniest storylines, like, full-blown, almost comedy. And then there’s another storyline that’s complete, absolute horror. But not sci-fi; it’s a horror. It’s really scary, and I’m excited for people to see that.”

Stranger Things‘ fourth season is premiereing on Netflix on May 27th.