Fans’ time in The Upside Down isn’t close to being over! The Stranger Things franchise just might be expanding with more mysteries for viewers.
The Netflix series became a global phenomenon upon its premiere in July 2016. Not only did fans watch (and rewatch) a group of kids from the fictional Hawkins, Indiana fight what has come to be known as the Demogorgon, but the series acted as the breakout roles for young stars, including Millie Bobby Brown, Caleb McLaughlin, Gaten Matarazzo, Noah Schnapp, Finn Wolfhard and Sadie Sink.
Millie, for one, kicked off her acting career as the mysterious Eleven, a young girl with telekinetic powers that has a strange connection to The Upside Down after spending most of her childhood in the Hawkins Lab enduring tests from their scientists. While viewers have since come to love the character’s rare line of dialogue and young love with Mike (played by Finn), Stranger Things might not be the last of Eleven. According to a conversation with Netflix’s co-CEO, Ted Sarandos, there may be more to come from the beloved character.
“Franchises are good, but what you want are hits,” Ted said at the California Code Conference in September 2021, per Deadline. The publication reported that the businessman also appeared to tease “spinoffs,” noting that there is a “a franchise being born” with Stranger Things.
All of these hints came amid the wait for the highly anticipated season 4, which premiered on the streaming service in 2022. As the cast gets older and nabs bigger roles, fans have worried that the fourth installment may be the end of Stranger Things. That being said, creators Ross and Matt Duffer have put those rumors to rest.
“Season 4 won’t be the end,” Ross told The Hollywood Reporter in August 2020. “We know what the end is, and we know when it is. [The pandemic] has given us time to look ahead, figure out what is best for the show. Starting to fill that out gave us a better idea of how long we need to tell that story.”
Millie, for her part, got emotional thinking about the series’ inevitable end while chatting with BBC Radio 1 in September 2020.
“It does scare me that we’re coming to some sort of … I don’t know, I mean, it’s season 3. How many more are we going to do?” she said at the time. “I don’t even want to talk about it, it gets me too upset.”
From the sound of it, she may not ever have to say goodbye to Eleven. Scroll through our gallery for everything we know about the possible continuation of the Stranger Things franchise.
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