As evidenced by the monster appearing in the clouds at the end of the trailer, fans tuning into Netflix’s “Stranger Things” Season 2 can expect larger — much larger — threats.
“It’s certainly bigger,” series co-creator Ross Duffer told TheWrap in a recent video interview.
It won’t be all large-scale set-pieces or battles, but once things get going, they don’t stop. The Duffer brothers — twins Ross and Matt — still promise character scenes and moments of relief, unlike the first season which began immediately with a supernatural kidnapping.
“The nice thing is we don’t have a kid disappearing in the first 10 minutes, so everybody’s not always turned up to 11 trying to save their friends,” Ross Duffer said. “It allows us to experience these characters more in their normal life for a bit, and have some fun with them. But then once things go wrong, we really escalate the stakes quickly, and it gets pretty crazy toward the end.”
“Stranger Things” Season 2 — or “Stranger Things 2” as it is officially called — is a sequel in a more traditional, cinematic sense. It’s a continuation of the story set up in the first season that debuted in July 2016, but it’s also expanding on the ideas set up. It’s also going to be self-contained in the same way Season 1 was.
In previous interviews, the Duffer brothers have cited famous movie sequels like “Terminator 2” and “Aliens” as inspiration. Both those installments are like their predecessors but larger in scope and more action-packed.
“We’re movie guys, and from the very beginning we thought of it as a sequel more than a television Season 2. That’s why it’s ‘Stranger Things 2,” Matt Duffer said. “It’s building off a lot of the ideas we established in Season 1, but it’s introducing new threats, new stakes and the idea is to resolve that more or less by the end of the season.”
So a lot of your favorite characters are coming back — the boys, the sheriff and yes, even Millie Bobby Brown’s otherworldly Eleven.
“I think her journey this season, though, is not what people will be expecting,” Ross said about everybody’s favorite young psychic. “We discovered how incredible Millie Bobby Brown was last season, so we’re really leaning into her a lot this season, and putting her into some pretty intense places. And she crushed it.”
And following that, the duo will set up another season, if Netflix will allow it. The hope is to have four seasons — or five maximum — to tell the story of Hawkins.
“We don’t want it to be going on particularly long, I think, for our own sanity,” Matt Duffer said. “I have to be excited about it every year, and I think our actors have to be excited about it every year.”
Watch the video above.
“Stranger Things 2” premieres on Netflix on Oct. 27.