Stranger Things is rewinding past its familiar 1980s setting. Netflix announced Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure on November 6, a live-action prequel planned for 2028. The Duffer brothers and longtime series writer Kate Trefry are behind the project, which promises a new ensemble of characters.
A different town, decades earlier
According to TheWrap’s account of the announcement teaser, the setting is Marion, Nevada, in 1955. A bicycle, music by the Chords and a threatening sky introduce the period before the teaser reveals the title. The imagery invites speculation, but it does not explain the new supernatural threat.
Netflix’s announcement places the story even before Stranger Things: The First Shadow, the stage production set in 1959. That leaves room to explore a different generation’s encounter with the strange, rather than filling in another summer between familiar episodes.
Watch Netflix’s official announcement teaser, embedded in GamesRadar’s report.
The First Shadow writer is leading the series
Trefry will serve as showrunner and writer. Joe Wright, whose films include Pride & Prejudice and Atonement, will direct the first three episodes. Production is planned for New Mexico.
The creative question is an appealing one: how much of Stranger Things comes from its specific kids and decade, and how much can travel into another kind of American nightmare? A new setting gives the series room to establish its own fears, friendships and visual identity.
There is no announced cast or exact premiere date yet. The Duffers say casting is next, and their instruction to fans is suitably cryptic: “watch the skies, nerds!”
Featured photograph: Matt and Ross Duffer at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2017. Gage Skidmore / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0. Wikimedia-resized image; no additional edits. Archival photograph, not artwork from Other Worlds.
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