Fans of Stranger Things were devasted by the news earlier this year that production on the new season had been delayed, though they understood the need for safety due to coronavirus pandemic protocols, with producer of the series Shawn Levy revealing that the delays allowed more time to polish the scripts for the new season, potentially making it the best season yet. Given how much praise the first seasons of the series have already earned, this is a bold claim from Levy, but with previous seasons seeing scripts being written as the series was actually being shot, Season Four will seemingly have a more unified and cohesive overall trajectory.
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“I’ll just say the pandemic definitely massively delayed shooting and therefore the launch of our current Season Four, date still TBD,” Levy shared with Collider. “But it impacted very positively by allowing the Duffer brothers, for the first time ever, to write the entire season before we shoot it and to have time to rewrite in a way that they rarely had before so the quality of these screenplays are exceptional, maybe better than ever.”
Levy isn’t the only one who noted that the delays in shooting resulted in stronger scripts, with star Natalia Dyer sharing a similar opinion earlier this year.
“Normally, we get the first few scripts, and then they have to keep writing due to the schedule of it,” Dyer shared with The Hollywood Reporter. “And it takes a while to craft a script. So, normally, there’s a kind of ‘writing as we’re going,’ but it seems they’ve had enough time. I think it’s maybe been a blessing for the writers, in some way, because they had the time to just sit down, think, and create. So, yeah, it appears to be that they’ve got it all down.”
When the series debuted back in 2016, it quickly became a massive success and pop culture phenomenon, earning Netflix one of the streamer’s biggest hits since they started developing original content. Unlike broadcast series, which fans always anticipate returning at the same time each year, pulling off each new season of Stranger Things has resulted in longer delays, with it being 15 months between Seasons One and Two, and almost two years between Seasons Two and Three.
As shooting started earlier this year before the coronavirus delays, some fans had hoped the new episodes could debut before the end of 2020, with Season Four likely not debuting until well into 2021.
Stay tuned for details on Stranger Things.
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