According to Ted Sarandos, director of content at Netflix, the Covid pandemic would have had a huge financial impact on season 4 of “Stranger Things”. Without this, two additional episodes could have been considered.
A long wait for Stranger Things season 4
The wait will have been long for fans of Stranger Things. While season 3 of the show was unveiled on July 4, 2019 on Netflix, the public had to be patient to see the rest. Three years have passed, and season 4 finally arrived on the platform in two parts (May 27 and July 1, 2022). A wait all the more frustrating as the initial release date was much earlier (estimated at the beginning of 2021).
It must be said that a few months after the release of Stranger Things season 3, the Covid-19 pandemic was beginning. The Hollywood industry has logically been impacted and the production of season 4 has therefore been postponed. However, there was no question for the brothers Matt Duffer and Ross Duffer to rush their creation to go faster. On the contrary, benefiting from a large budget, the duo wanted to offer an even more imposing season with a total of nine episodes of more than one hour, including a finale exceeding two hours.
The impact of the Covid on the Netflix series
Therefore, seeing the result, it is difficult to perceive the impact of Covid on the production of the series. Yet, without the pandemic, things would have been very different. This was recently indicated by Ted Sarandos to dealin. Netflix Content Director admitted to the American media that the pandemic had had a significant financial impact on the streaming platform, since 5 to 10% of the content budget were devoted to expenses related to the coronavirus. And in the case of Stranger Thingsthe series would have been “more financially impacted by the pandemic than the other creations on the platform“.
He specifies that for this series precautions”extremes have been taken“, especially for casting. The youth of the performers would have been taken into account, while the many filming locations and the scale of the production would have required greater logistics.
Finally, Ted Sarandos makes a surprising revelation since he explains to Deadline that by removing this element from the equation, it “would have been possible to draw two additional episodes from it“. It’s unclear if the Duffer Brothers considered doing an eleven-episode season and ultimately couldn’t, or if Ted Sarandos is just painting a more concrete picture. additional costs generated by the Covid. In any case, there is nothing to regret for the fans. Season 4 is holding up very well with these nine episodes. And for those who ask for more, a fifth and final season of Stranger Things is already in the works as well as a possible spin-off.
