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