Posted in: HBO, Netflix, TV | Tagged: game of thrones, stranger things 5

Stranger Things 5 Team Didn't Want Finale to Be "Game of Thrones" 2.0

Stranger Things 5's Finn Wolfhard on the concern early on that the final season would be received the same way as "Game of Thrones."

With the first volume of Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer's Stranger Things 5 set to hit Netflix screens next month, TIME went live with an in-depth profile of how the final season of the hit series came together and what the future could hold for the franchise. One of the topics addressed was the pressure that comes with ending a popular series and figuring out how to "land the plane" the right way that meets the creators' and the fans' expectations. Some have done it very well (AMC's Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, ABC's LOST), while others… not so much (it took "Dexter" two bad finales before getting things right). Whatever you think about the final season and episode of HBO's Game of Thrones, it was definitely polarizing.

Personally, we loved the final run and thought it made sense with what we were presented leading into it. Honestly, GOT never gave us the impression that the finale would dive into fan-servicing. But a whole lot of folks feel different, and the cast and creative team still hear about it to this day. So, you can understand why the "Stranger Things" team would be nervous about wrapping things up. "I think everyone was pretty worried, honestly," Finn Wolfhard shared. "The way that 'Game of Thrones' got torn to shreds in that final season, we're all walking into this going, 'We hope to not have that kind of thing happen.'" That changed once the scripts started coming in. "But then we read the scripts. We knew that it was something special."

Stranger Things 5 "Eight Blockbuster Movies": Showrunners

Stranger Things 5 Will Be "Like Eight Blockbuster Movies" But Also a "Personal Story": "We spent a full year filming this season," Ross shared during Netflix's big event to roll out its 2025 slate. "By the end, we had captured over 650 hours of footage. So, needless to say, this is our biggest and most ambitious season yet. It's like eight blockbuster movies. It's pretty, pretty insane." Matt added, "At the same [time], we think it's — or hope it's — our most personal story. It was super intense and emotional to film — for us and for our actors we've been with for so long. And we've been making it together for almost 10 years now. There was a lot of crying. There was so much crying. The show means so much to all of us, and everyone put their hearts and souls into it. And we hope — and believe — that passion is going to translate to the screen."

The "Stranger Things" Universe Is Far From Ending: "There are more Stranger Things stories to tell and in the works," Matt shared, following up on what the Duffer Brothers have discussed since the final season of the franchise series was announced. "It's a bit early at this point to talk about them, but we're deeply involved in every one. It's very important to us that anything with the 'Stranger Things' name on it is of the highest quality and not repetitive, that it has a reason to exist and always blazes its own path. And also, it needs to basically just be awesome — or we need to think it's awesome. And there are a lot of what we think are awesome things in the pipeline."

We're looking at Episode 1: "The Crawl," Episode 2: "The Vanishing of …," Episode 3: "The Turnbow Trap," Episode 4: "Sorcerer," Episode 5: "Shock Jock," Episode 6: "Escape from Camazotz," Episode 7: "The Bridge," and Episode 8: "The Rightside Up." You can check out the title tease above, and a "fan edition" of a behind-the-scenes set visit below. And don't forget that Nell Fisher, Jake Connelly, Alex Breaux, and the amazing Linda Hamilton have joined the cast for the fifth and final season. The first volume arrives on November 26th, followed by the second volume on December 25th and the series finale on December 31st.

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