'Stranger Things': Duffer Brothers On Inspiration, Season 2

Gregory Ellwood: There have been a bunch of bingeworthy series on Netflix or Amazon or other prestige channels where it’s clear like, “O.K., this story didn’t have to be told over ten episodes.  This could have been done in five or four.” Did you guys only have a green light for eight?

Ross Duffer: No, no, we said that’s what we want. We wanted to keep it down. I think we saw “True Detective” and I was like.”I thought that felt pretty right on at eight.”

Gregory Ellwood: So you were already confident with eight.

Ross Duffer: Roughly. We just felt that that seemed right. I think that when you start to get into 13 episodes, unless it’s the right type of show, it can start to feel like you’re treading water especially seven, eight. Even last year I wasn’t totally happy in terms of how we structured the story. It was hard. There were a couple of areas where I felt like, we were treading water. And so like this year, we were figuring out how to tell what we feel is like an eight hour — in this case nine hour — movie, where it feels like it’s constantly building, and you’re never just bullshitting.

Gregory Ellwood: So does season two consist of nine or ten hours?

Ross Duffer: It’s nine. Which is weird, but we just broke out the season and it just seemed like eight was going to be a little tight. Because you don’t want it too tight, because then it feels like you’re just racing through your plot. And ten felt a little unnecessary.

Matt Duffer: But I think we’re going to try to go back to eight. Because I just remember even when we were writing, and we’re like, “Oh, we have one more script.” We were all like about to pass out. Like somehow, that extra script just made everyone’s lives very difficult.

Ross Duffer: Yeah, psychologically, [it wasn’t] the best.

Matt Duffer: So I think people want us to keep doing more, but you know for us, it’s all about quality control. Like people want, television particularly, they want it on this annual cycle. Movie sequels never come out on an annual cycle, unless they’re shooting back to back.

Ross Duffer: Unless they’re a “Spider-Man” movie.

Matt Duffer: Yeah, they don’t do “Spider-Man” movies back to back?

Gregory Ellwood: There’s been three “Spider-Man” movies over the past five years.

Matt Duffer: Yeah, but that’s not one a year. It’s not five “Spider-Man” movies.

Ross Duffer: Exactly, yeah.

Matt Duffer: And we have way more. We’re not making two hours, we’re making nine hours.  And then, we’re trying to put in more visual effects. We’re trying to make it look more and more like a movie.

Ross Duffer: And you can’t go like, “Oh, that last episode, we have extra time with it because it’s not airing for a couple months.” No, it’s like we have to finish it all at the same time.

Ross Duffer: The “Game of Thrones” [team] — they’re still probably — I don’t know, but I’m [guessing] they’re probably still doing visual effects and whatever the last episodes are [down to the wire].  We don’t have that, we can’t do that. So we can’t start airing it and keep working. It’s like, it’s just got to be done.

Gregory Ellwood: In terms of the renewal you guys probably realized by August, September you were coming back? I can’t remember when Netflix even formally renewed the series.

Ross Duffer: It’s true. We still didn’t have the official green light, but we had a room going. And we were working on it. We were working on it before the show even came out.

Gregory Ellwood:  But did the reaction to anything on the show affect what…

Ross Duffer: It’s hard to say.

Matt Duffer: I’m sure it did.

Ross Duffer: But we did have a full on pitch to Netflix. Which, basically is the arc of the show that we ended up with before it came out. So, we weren’t affected in the overall plotting of it, but we were more affected by just the performers, because when we did season one we had six episodes that were already written by the time we started shooting. Then you’re filming this and you’re like, “Jesus Christ, David Harbour.” That guy, I mean we knew he was going to be good, but we can throw him some fast balls and he’s going to knock them out of the park. Or even Millie [Bobbie Brown].  I remember there’s a scene where she’s being dragged down the hallway in the lab and she’s screaming, crying and everyone in the crew just looked at each other like, “This girl.”  She took it to a whole other level than any of us even knew she was capable of. I think the biggest thing this season was knowing what our cast was capable of. And just, let’s throw them some fast balls.

Gregory Ellwood.: Now you’re editing season two, you guys haven’t had a break to do anything else.

Ross Duffer: We will never have a break until we stop the show.

Gregory Ellwood: I guess that was my question. Are you trying to set it up at least with Netflix that you can be like, “Hey,  creatively we need to do something else. Make a movie for a year. Can we skip a season?” Or is that never going to happen?

Matt Duffer: Well, we can’t because of the children.

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Gregory Ellwood: Oh, right!

Matt Duffer: So, that’s kind of got us tied in.

Ross Duffer: I think, for us, we’d rather just tell this story and then get out. I think we realize how lucky we are that we told a story that connected with people and we love the world and we love the characters.

Matt Duffer: It’s like “O.K., you may never make something again that resonates with people in the way that this show did.”  It feels a little bit like lightning in a bottle.

Ross Duffer: And then the movies are like you’re leaving your world to join someone else’s world. Because that’s mostly what it is, right? It’s franchises. But then I’m just serving them. I love that we’ve sort of created these characters and this world and that it’s ours. I think we have more control at the end of the day.

Matt Duffer: I think Netflix, in terms of supporting original IP, is the place to be and the movie studios not so much anymore.

Gregory Ellwood: I actually think you guys could probably get more control than you think you could on a movie.

Matt Duffer: On a movie? Yeah?

Gregory Ellwood: I think there’s a bunch of studios that might be like, “Do this. Do your thing. We trust you.”

Matt Duffer: Maybe. I’d love to do a movie because the amount of time you get it just sounds so amazing. So luxurious. The amount of time for post and the amount of time for shooting. That’s what I want.

Gregory Ellwood: You guys specifically didn’t do any real stunt casting with more famous names for the second season.

Matt Duffer: Well, it gets really distracting, you know what I mean?  There were obviously some people we could have brought in, more well known, but it just started to feel [like] it betrays the world of the show. Sean Astin, Paul Reiser, it felt like it fit the tone of the show. They’re both great. I love both of them so much. And then, I think Sean is gonna really surprise people with what he does on the show.

Ross Duffer: [Sean] sort of did the Winona this season. When we did the table read and stuff and seeing how he played this role, he changed the course of his whole role. That role was envisioned very differently, and then he just brought this element to us that really inspired us. I think he just made the whole season so much better. I know you only see a glimpse of him running down the hallway [in the trailer]….

Matt Duffer: Yeah, he’s going to be a pretty big part of the season. In the trailer, there’s one shot of him.

Ross Duffer: Right. He’s amazing.

Matt Duffer: But he’s in one tiny little shot with Paul Reiser. I think enough to sort of very quietly teasing these new characters. But they all do play a major role.