Stranger Things: The First Shadow Reveals Updated Mind Flayer Design (It’s Huge)

The new Broadway play based on Stranger Things is introducing a redesigned Mind Flayer to the franchise. Stranger Things: The First Shadow takes the Stranger Things story from a West End stage play to Broadway. It even won an Olivier Award last year and comes from playwright Kate Trefry. One of her biggest hopes for Stranger Things: The First Shadow was to blanket a theater inside a Mind Flayer, one of the terrifying monsters from the Upside Down. Trefry got her wish, but it came with a rather large caveat. However, Trefry ultimately got her wish, and the Mind Flayer ended up being pretty massive.

Playwright Kate Trefry spoke to Entertainment Weekly about Stranger Things: The First Shadow. She recalled how when she first started on the project, she was told she could do whatever she wanted with the Stranger Things property. That wound up not being the case when it came to the Mind Flayer.

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“I was like, ‘My big Joker card is at some point we’re going to have this huge Mind Flayer deploy and it’s going to encompass the entire theater. The theater itself is within the grasp of the Mind Flayer, and this whole story is being told from that perspective,’” Trefry told EW. “And everybody was like, ‘Awesome, great. We’re not doing that. That’s… no.’”

Even with those original Mind Flayer plans dashed, Trefry was still able to incorporate the creature into the play. She said the new Mind Flayer is “the realization of that [original] gesture,” and fans will get to see it when Stranger Things: The First Shadow debuts in the states in March. “I am so thrilled by the depth and complexity and detail on the new one,” Trefry added. “I couldn’t believe that there was another version of it. I didn’t even know it could get better.”

Co-director Justin Martin revealed that “a whole lotta new illusions” are coming to Stranger Things: The First Shadow. The box office for Stranger Things: The First Shadow opens on Friday, February 7th at 10 a.m. ET.