Posted in: Netflix, Preview, TV | Tagged: Maya Hawke, netflix, preview, season 5, stranger things, stranger things 5

Stranger Things 5: Final Season Eps "Basically Eight Movies": Hawke

During an interview with Podcrushed, Maya Hawke explained why Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer's Stranger Things 5 is taking so long to film.

As filming continues rolling along on Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer's Stranger Things 5, some fans still seem surprised that the series takes as long as it does to film. Despite the epicness that they've seen on their screens for the past four seasons, there seems to be this expectation that a season should be able to wrap around the same time as other streaming series. Checking in with Podcrushed hosts Penn Badgley, Nava Kavelin, and Sophie Ansari, Maya Hawke (Inside Out 2) covered a wide range of topics over the course of this week's episode (available below) – including an excellent way of explaining why this season needs the time that it does to film.

After explaining how the fourth season was released and that the final season will run directly from it, Hawke noted that it's been sometime between seasons and how "this show has been a little bit cursed" due to being directly impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the WGA & SAG-AFTRA strikes. But Hawke credited the Duffer Brothers and the writing team for keeping the scripts going: "They are very intense and serious about the quality of the continued writing, and so it takes a long time to write each season." That translates into much more epic filming for those eight episodes than with most series – as Hawke notes, "We're making basically eight movies." Here's a look at Hawke's episode of the podcast – with the Stranger Things talk kicking in at around the 37:11 mark:

Stranger Things 5 "Like Season One on Steroids"

During an interview with The Guardian, Ross & Matt discuss the pressures of ending the series in a way that works creatively and satisfies the audience's expectations and how this final run with these characters will feel "like season one on steroids."

"The nine hours that precede the ending can be amazing. But if you stumble at that one-yard line, people will never forgive you for that. And they'll forget the previous nine hours of awesomeness! So it's amazing what they will forgive if you score a touchdown at the end," Matt Duffer explained when discussing their feelings on how series finales are viewed. "Endings of shows are like opening a restaurant in terms of the success-failure rate – there's an 80% failure rate, I'd say. But I think one very particular way to fail is to attempt to appease everybody."

Matt continued, "We have a huge variety of fans that span a huge age range, and I'm sure they have all their own ideas of how they want the show to end. But we're not consulting social media on this. Then you just hope and pray that it resonates. But it was funny: once we got there, it just felt right, and we're going to go for it!"

As the duo had stated previously, the universe will live on after Stranger Things 5 – but the characters that viewers have grown to love & connect with will see their stories end with the fifth season. With that much on the line, the Duffer Brothers aren't going out quietly. "This season – it's like season one on steroids. It's the biggest it's ever been in terms of scale, but it has been really fun, because everyone's back together in Hawkins: the boys and Eleven interacting more in line with how it was in season one. And, yes, there may be spin-offs, but the story of Eleven and Dustin and Lucas and Hopper, their stories are done here. That's it," Matt shared – before adding, "Outside of the play. So if you want to see more of some of them, go see the play."

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