After Season 1 premiered, it took Stranger Things creators Ross and Matt Duffer 15 months to write, film, and add all the creature-feature special effects to the second season of their hit Netflix series.
With stars like Finn Wolfhard, David Harbour, and Millie Bobby Brown increasingly in demand on major upcoming film projects like It 2, Hellboy, and Godzilla: King of Monsters, the Duffer brothers might find it even more challenging to get their entire cast together to film Season 3. Either way, fans likely won’t get another installment in this particular adventure until 2019. No Game of Thrones or Stranger Things in 2018? What’s a genre-lover to do?
When Season 3 does premiere, the Duffers have confirmed the show will feature yet another significant time jump in order to keep pace with its young, growing cast members. If Stranger Things does leap forward one year in time (say, to the end of Eleven’s confinement?), then expect to see a few more inches of hair on its leading lady’s head and, perhaps, the start of her first-ever school year with the rest of her friends. If all the kids—Eleven, Mike, Will, Lucas, Dustin, Max—are 14 in Season 3, which means we’ll likely see them all bravely entering the dangerous territory of ninth grade at Hawkins High.