The Duffer Brothers discuss the future of the “Stranger Things” franchise, including a Broadway stage production

Variety

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00:00Well, I think for us, The First Shadow was sort of our first attempt at moving...

00:05This is the Broadway play.

00:06Yeah, the Broadway play.

00:07It's called A Change of Things, The First Shadow, and I think it was our, I think sort

00:11of a proof of concept for us initially, because again, this was not something necessarily

00:15generated by Matt and I, it's Stephen Dalger who came to us with this idea to make a play,

00:21and Stephen is a genius, and he had such a passion for it, and then we were able to work

00:26with, well, initially Jack Thorne, and then Kate Trefry, who has been on the show as a

00:32writer since season two, and is a good friend, and we were writing season four at the time,

00:37and we were able to crack the story, but I think what was exciting about it was to see

00:41someone like Stephen and Kate take this world, sort of that we had built, but do their own

00:47thing with it, and so we were involved, but not in a day-to-day, and so to come show up

00:53in London and see them put together this amazing performance with these incredible actors,

00:58it blew us away, and it got us excited about there's a way to continue expanding and telling

01:03stories within Stranger Things beyond this, the core story that we're telling.

01:08But I think it was a key example in the sense that it also was completely not manufactured,

01:13we weren't looking to expand it, it was Stephen coming to Netflix, he didn't know us with

01:20this idea, so then it feels very pure, it's not coming from a sort of crass or commercial

01:25place, so that's kind of the goal, if something like that comes along again, then we do it,

01:31but we don't go sit in a room and go, okay, how do we come up with some other Stranger

01:36Things-y thing, you know what I mean?

01:39And so that's what's very important, and kind of like our litmus test is, are we excited

01:44enough about this that we would actually want to do this, and want to devote an insane

01:50amount of time to?

01:51And if it doesn't pass that, then forget it, you know?

01:55Do you see a future in maybe additional series, a film, games?

02:00I mean, who knows, who knows?

02:03These are good questions.

02:04I don't know, we're taking it one step at a time, I guess.

02:08What would you say, Ross?

02:09Yeah, I think we have ideas, but again, we're going to start to sort of solidify that in

02:19the coming year, really, while we're editing, now that we have some downtime, we were just

02:22so underwater with the filming of it all, and like Matt's saying, we don't want to rush

02:27anything, we don't want to just do something just to do it, or for commercial reasons,

02:31we want it to have a real reason to exist, and something that we're all excited about.

02:36And I think it's okay, but it's like, this story, these character stories, that's done.

02:42So that whole story is coming to an end, has come to an end.

02:46There's not like a Steve Dustin spinoff, or something like that.

02:49Well, I was going to say, I hope, I assume they live, and...

02:55I don't know, but you know, that, the goal, it's...

02:58That was very subtle.

03:00Yeah.

03:01But, you know, I mean, yeah, the hope is, it's like, we finish telling this story, and

03:08then you leave it, and then you tell new stories, and hopefully there are new characters that

03:11people can fall in love with.

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