After ‘Stranger Things’: The Duffer Brothers Look Into the Future (2024)

Stranger Things creators Ross and Matt Duffer never intended to live in the ’80s forever.

Their original plan for Netflix’s supernatural megahit was to start in Reagan-era America, then flash forward to the present day. “It was going to be one season, and then we were going to do a time jump. We were really inspired by It,” Matt says, referring to the decade-spanning Stephen King novel that chronicles both childhood and adulthood for its killer-clown hunting heroes. “If we wanted to continue…we’d have some of the kids as adults with their own kids.”

But plans change. The nostalgia of those glory days was too alluring, the young stars too compelling to leave behind, and the dangers of Hawkins, Indiana, remained ever present, even while rooted in yesteryear. Now that Stranger Things is drawing closer to its inevitable conclusion (ahead of its season four premiere, it was renewed for a fifth and final season), the Duffer Brothers are looking ahead once again.

Could we see these kids as grown-ups someday? What else is on the horizon for the writing-directing-and-producing duo? After drawing so much influence from King, is there a straight adaptation in their future?

The Duffer Brothers answered all these questions and more as Stranger Things drops volume one of its fourth season this weekend, with two epic-size episodes coming in volume two this July.

We began our conversation discussing another time—the mid-’90s instead of the 1980s—and a grudge the twin brothers have held for more than a quarter century…

Vanity Fair: I’m going to avoid diving into spoilers for season four because it’s just dropping now. But what is your approach to talking about them? What do you think audiences should know at the start?

Ross Duffer: It's always a balancing act, because you want to get people excited, but you don't want to ruin the experience. So it's hard to say. I'm so used now to social media, with everyone like: “Spoiler warning!” and just trying to be very careful. A friend of ours ruined the ending of Se7en for us in sixth grade and I've never forgiven him, because that was a great filmgoing experience.

Matt Duffer: It's one of the all-time great endings.

Ross Duffer: And he ruined it for us! He told us [redacted]! It was so disappointing.

I know the movie came out in 1995, but if I quote you saying that, somebody online is going to be like, "It … what?"

Ross Duffer: Exactly.

Matt Duffer: No, enough time has passed. That [sixth grade experience] was within a year of release, which is unacceptable.

Ross Duffer: Can you imagine trying to release The Sixth Sense now? How do you avoid that getting out instantly? I don't know.

What's your philosophy about talking about the twists and the surprises in the show? When do you like to do your post-game interviews and discuss endings, and deaths, and cliffhangers?

Ross Duffer: Well, it's changed, honestly from season one to now. It was particularly shocking to us just how quickly season three was consumed. People watched it over that July 4th weekend, and really started delving into it right after that. Whereas, season one was much more about people finding it, and spreading through word of mouth. So that lasted a couple months. It went from a much more extended conversation to something that is much more compressed.

Matt Duffer: But because of the length of this new season, I think we’ve got to give people a good two weeks.

Ross Duffer: That's true. It'd be a lot to binge in a weekend.

It has been three years since your last season of Stranger Things. Your characters are getting a little older, your actors are growing up. How would you say this new season ages up with the characters?

Matt Duffer: That's one of the things I like about the show, as much as I would've loved to freeze them in time, when they were so cute in season one. Whenever I look back, my jaw hits the floor over how little they were. But it is sort of that Harry Potter thing that as they get older, it allows the show to organically evolve. This season in particular, our quote-unquote kids are not kids; they're teens. So it felt very natural for us to put them into a horror film. It's allowed us to go into darker places than we would've been able to go in season one.

Would it be safe to reveal there's an otherworldly presence named Vecna who lives in The Upside Down dimension, but is preying on teenagers in our world? And that he attacks from within their heads?

Matt Duffer: Yeah, that's fine. Listen: I always wanted to do a Nightmare on Elm Street movie, which was never going to happen. It was like, ‘Okay, this is our opportunity. What does a Freddy Krueger look like in the Stranger Things universe, and how would it work with the kids?’ One of the most terrifying things about Freddy Krueger is he's actually not physically there. He's in your mind.

Tell me more about making this season more of a horror story than a fantasy adventure.

Matt Duffer: That's been a lot of fun, because as inspired as we were by the Amblin films, like The Goonies and all that, Ross and I got into the edgier stuff in high school. In particular, there was A Nightmare on Elm Street, there was Hellraiser, there was Stephen King. We just followed this path and we discovered John Carpenter, we discovered The Thing, we watched The Shining…

Those are all very different narratives, but they share a common thread—things actually don't work out okay. Not too many happy endings.

Matt Duffer: They almost felt dangerous because it felt like there was no safety net. We didn't know what they were going to show. When I popped in Hellraiser, that tone was unrelenting and there was no sense of escape. It was a different form of escapism. So we wanted to recapture that this year, a little bit.

In those adolescent years, there's so much anguish in your own head. You are thinking the worst things about yourself, you're obsessing. Is season four symbolic of that, given that your monster preys on those who are overwhelmed with fears and regrets and mistakes?

Matt Duffer: For sure, yes. Ross and I—and I think it's fair to say most of the writers we were working with—none of us had a particularly good high school experience. You're figuring out who you are, and it's always tumultuous. When we started talking about high school, we started talking about anxiety and depression and all of these issues that, for us, weren't present in middle school. Middle school was a magical time for us, whereas high school was like running free in a forest and then hitting straight into a concrete wall.

A lot of what you're dealing with is internal. I didn't have anyone to talk about it with, and it wasn't until college that I started to look back on high school and understand a little bit more of what I had gone through.

Your twin brother just looked at you like, "I was right there."

Matt Duffer: [Laughs.] Ross and I needed to do better in communicating with each other. No, but we did have each other, and then a lot of our escape came through making movies. That's how we made it through. Anyway, we thought of Vecna as someone who could exploit the fact that these teens are going through a difficult time.

Ross Duffer: He’s like a shark. He's going around in the waters looking for prey. The easier prey are the ones kicking their legs [and struggling]. He sees that motion, and that makes them much more vulnerable to being grabbed.

Matt Duffer: Vecna preys on these insecurities, and a lot of them aren't even real. I think that's what a lot of people struggle with. You're telling yourself stories that aren't even a reflection of reality, but you loop them, and at a certain point it becomes real. He's that voice in your head that you can't put away. That's what Vecna represents.

You not only have A Nightmare on Elm Street vibes this season, but you also have Freddy Krueger actor Robert Englund in a surprise role. Can you tell me about bringing him into this world (or is that a spoiler)?

Ross Duffer: No, that's fine, we can talk about Robert. I wish I could take credit for that or Matt could take credit for it. But we were just looking through audition tapes, and he popped on screen and was just brilliant. He's so intertwined with that role of Freddy Krueger, but at the end of the day, he's a great actor and he's a legend.

The same thing happened with Sean Astin for Bob [in season two]. That was not an initial idea we had for that role, but we were looking at tapes and he just embodied the character in a really interesting way. I'm excited for people to see Robert play someone that's not Freddy Krueger. He's very emotional and he does a tremendous job.

Matt Duffer: It's less about the nod and the wink. That's veering into meta territory. It's more honestly about Ross and I selfishly getting a chance to work with actors who we so admired growing up. The Krueger voice? He'll just do it for you. Some of people I've met, they really don't want to talk about what they were famous for, say, in the ‘80s. But oh no, Robert loves to do Freddy, and it still sends shivers down my back.

You two were profoundly influenced by Stephen King.

Matt Duffer: Who?

[Laughs] Yeah, have you ever heard of him?

Ross Duffer: I don't know who you're talking about.

Matt Duffer: No, not familiar with him.

There’s a creepy house in these new episodes that calls to mind the one that leads to Pennywise’s lair in It. Can you tell me about that book’s influence on season four?

Matt Duffer: It was a big influence on the show from the start. It has always been in there—the idea of kids in a small town battling a supernatural entity from another dimension. The biggest takeaway from It for me is: character first, or nothing else that happens is going to matter. When Pennywise emerges, you're not going to be as frightened as you are for these kids. The reason you're shaking is because you see yourself in those kids. It felt like I was there. He convinced me I was there, and then he brought this clown into it.

Ross Duffer: And the fact that Pennywise is sentient and he can talk to you is something we did want to do this season with Vecna. It's something we've never had before. Last season, we got our big monster movie, Jurassic Park, summer blockbuster out of the way. Now it was like, okay, what if we take a much more psychological turn?

Matt Duffer: Yeah, we had a monster that was as big as a mall. What do you do, just make it as big as a skyscraper? That's the wrong way to go. By scaling it down, it actually feels a lot bigger—a lot scarier.

What’s next for you? I know you're planning a fifth season beyond this, and then that's going to be it.

Ross Duffer: Yeah.

Matt Duffer: Yeah, exactly.

Speaking of Stephen King, I understand you are working on the adaptation of The Talisman, a book he co-wrote with Peter Straub. Is that still happening? What's the status?

Ross Duffer: We're starting to branch out a little bit into producing stuff that we're not necessarily showrunning, just because there are properties or writers or directors that we really admire and want to work with. The Talisman being one example. That's a big property that they've been trying to get going for 30 years, so if we can help get that going, that would be incredible. We've been so entrenched in Stranger Things world, it's nice to start to step out.

Matt Duffer: I think it's one of the last ‘80s Stephen King books that has not been adapted in any form. And the only reason is because Steven Spielberg grabbed onto the rights. He grabbed the rights and he's held onto it for 30 years. You look at that book, and it's 800-plus pages. It's too big for a movie. At the time, TV was not equipped to do what you need to do with that book. It's huge, it's got tons of spectacle, it's massive. Now, when you can basically do these eight-hour movies, finally I think the time is right to make The Talisman. I'm optimistic it's going to happen because the hurdles that stood in the way are now gone.

I’ve interviewed both King and Spielberg about this, and you’re right. Spielberg didn’t option it—he bought it outright and owns the rights in perpetuity.

Ross Duffer: Exactly.

Matt Duffer: That's why no one's made it. The option has never lapsed. Our friend Curtis Gwinn is heading that show, and he's one of the writers from Stranger Things. He called us and he was like, "Would you be interested in being involved in any way?" And we're like, "Are you kidding?" It's Stephen King and Steven Spielberg, and it's about a boy who crosses into another dimension not to save his friend, but save his mother. There's so many parallels to Stranger Things. It's very different tonally than Stranger Things, so it's not going to feel like Stranger Things: Part Two, but…

Ross Duffer: … It does share some DNA.

Matt Duffer: Yeah, it definitely shares a lot. Originally, that's how we pitched Stranger Things, like it was an undiscovered Stephen King book that Spielberg directed. That was the pitch, so the fact that [The Talisman] is a Stephen King-Spielberg collaboration, to be any tiny part in it is awesome.

So Curtis Gwinn is writing it, but you're producing it. Have you had any conversations with either of the Steves about it?

Ross Duffer: Not with Stephen King. With Spielberg, we have, yeah.

What did he tell you about why he was so passionate about it?

Ross Duffer: You can just see the joy he has for this story. It really comes down to the relationship with the kid and his mom. That's the emotional through-line of that story, and that's what we're trying to capture. But of course, there's an incredible werewolf character, which I think is at least a top-10 Stephen King character. Wolf is right up there. I think we're all excited about bringing that to life.

Matt Duffer: There's a 100-page section of the book that is like Shawshank Redemption with teenagers and a werewolf, and I'm just like...

Oh yeah, in that crazy religious orphanage. Sunlight Home. It's incredible.

Matt Duffer: If this is executed as well as the writing deserves, that's a slam dunk. Anyway, I'm excited about it. I know it's probably pretty far off. To me, just to get to the part where we're casting Wolf, that's the goal. That's the make it or break it, the casting of Wolf. You find the right actor for that role…

King and Straub revisited Jack Sawyer, the main character in The Talisman, as an adult in 2001’s Black House. So this is a question you may be loath to answer, but: is there any part of you that thinks you’d like to revisit your kids, the Stranger Things characters, sometime way off in the future when they're grown-ups?

Matt Duffer: Well, I like that. I think there's potential in there. I think you just have to be doing it for the right reason. That's why, right now, there's no other Stranger Things properties—just the Stranger Things show. We just don't want to be doing anything for the wrong reason, and we don't want to be doing more seasons than there should be. It feels like five and out, and then we wait a while. And who knows what's going to happen with our career, what interests are going to pull us.

If we wanted to continue… we'd have some of the kids as adults with their own kids. I like that idea. We have become so close to the cast, and it's unusual in the sense that so many of them started out as kids. I always say we're less like dads to them and more like older brothers, but it is like family. I think we're going to miss each other a lot.

I think at a certain point, it would feel really good to work together again, whether it's on something else or another Stranger Things. But I think right now, for my own sanity, I have to just be like: one more season of Stranger Things, and I'm going to be Stranger Things’d out for a while. You just have to wait until you feel that pull of: God, I have to do this.

Ross Duffer: The goal, honestly, with five is to make it feel like a really satisfying and hopefully, to the journey of these characters. That's really the drive right now. But like Matt's saying, anything's possible.

Prior to selling Stranger Things to Netflix, we pitched on Goonies II, and it was the same [concept]. It was, let's have the older generation, the generation from the original movie, now have kids and it's like these dual adventures. I don't think we ever fully cracked it. I think that the trick is to not milk it and to come back and do it for the right reasons. That's the goal. But who knows? Like Matt said, I think we're going to miss them.

Even now, just talking about writing these characters for one more time next season, it gets us all choked up and emotional. We have their voices in our head, and I know the actors do. How can I not write Dustin again, or Steve? It's sad. Maybe we'll feel that pull. But the goal right now is, let's stick that landing and tell a satisfying ending to this story.

Is that time-jump concept you had in mind still viable, or has that story been used in other ways?

Ross Duffer: It honestly wasn't an idea. It was just more like, "Oh, we could do a time jump in..." Then Netflix goes, "Well, can you continue this story with these kids?" And we said, "Sure." It wasn't really until season two got going that we went and started to build out this whole world.

Waiting a while to revisit these characters will give you guys a chance to reflect on adulthood. What were the things that haunted us in our 30s?

Ross Duffer: Matt's a new father now. I'm sure we're going to learn a lot of lessons along the way.

Matt Duffer: The problem with this interview is Netflix will pull this out in 20 years or whatever and say, "See …? You guys said you want to do this, right?"

Ross Duffer: Exactly.

You are not committed. This is not binding.

Matt Duffer: All right… “I said ‘maybe!’ And that was 20 years ago! Relax!”

This interview has been edited and condensed for context and clarity.

More Great Stories From Vanity Fair