Don’t expect too many new faces for the final season of Stranger Things, as the Duffer Brothers hope to spend as much time as possible with the cast of characters fans have watched since the beginning.
Speaking to IndieWire, the Duffer Brothers said introducing too many characters would rob screen time from the characters fans will want to spend the most time with during the final season.
“Whenever we introduce a new character, we want to make sure that they’re going to be an integral part of the narrative,” Ross Duffer said. “But every time we do that, we’re nervous, because you go, ‘We’ve got a great cast of characters here, and actors, and any moment we’re spending with a new character, we’re taking time away from one of the other actors.’ So we’re just very, very careful about who we’re introducing.”
Matt Duffer agreed, saying their instinct is to mix up the cast for each season, but that they’ll try their best to avoid that habit for the final ride.
“I just like shaking it up, so we shake it up by changing the plot or adding in a new monster. We’re doing our best to resist [adding new characters] for Season 5. We’re trying not to do that so we can focus on the OG characters, I guess.”
We still don’t know much about the next (and final) season of Stranger Things. The Duffer Brothers have said that Season 5 will likely be shorter than Season 4, and that there won’t be much setup, “before our kids really get drawn into the supernatural mystery.” The creators have also said they are going for a Return of the King-like ending. We also know Stranger Things won’t shift to a weekly release schedule for its final season.
If one thing’s for certain, it’s that Stranger Things 5 will have a ton of eyes on it. Stranger Things 4 has already racked up over 1 billion hours in watch time, making it the second most-watched series in Netflix history, only trailing last year’s Squid Game.
For more, check out our burning questions after Stranger Things Season 4, Part 2. Or, check out why David Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper in the series, was sure Stranger Things would be a disaster.
Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.