Frank Darabont has not stepped behind a camera since directing episodes of the 2013 series Mob City, but he recently revealed why he is coming out of retirement to direct two episodes of the final season of Netflix hit Stranger Things. Darabont is directing the third and fifth episodes of the upcoming season, and while speaking to The Daily Beast to reminisce about the 30th anniversary of The Shawshank Redemption, he touched on what brought him back to the industry for Netflix’s juggernaut.
Stranger Things’ final season already comes with some high expectations as it attempts to deliver a fitting finale to what has been one of the greatest TV shows in Netflix’s history. With Shawn Levy and now Darabont working on the season, fans are really expecting something special. For Darabont, he was happy to return to directing for one simple reason. He explained:
“What really dragged me out of retirement was that my wife and I really love this show. Our content now is so filled with horrible people doing horrible things for greedy reasons but Stranger Things has so much heart. That positivity is something I really responded to.”
While this could be a glorious return from the man who ushered The Walking Dead into the world, Darabont doesn’t seem to have made up his mind whether this could be the start of a new chapter in his career, or simply a belated epilogue. When asked about his possible future in the industry, the director said:
“Who knows? I haven’t missed the business but I have missed being on set with creative people… It may well be one and done, but we’ve still got time.”
Stranger Things is Concluding with an ‘8 Movie’ Finale
While Stranger Things Season 4 did literally contain some episodes that were longer than big screen movies, it seems that fans can prepare for all eight episodes to be like mini movies in themselves. Star Maya Hawke responded to questions about the length of time the finale is taking to complete back in June, and emphasized the scope of the new season.
It takes a long time to write each season and a long time to shoot them. We’re making basically 8 movies.
Despite this “eight movie” approach to the final season, fans shouldn’t be expecting something quite as long as Season 4, which doubled the runtime of previous seasons and included a season finale that clocked in over two hours long. That doesn’t mean that Season 5 will be any less epic, and more importantly, it will fully complete the story that began back in 2016. Star David Harbour recently said:
“The beauty of it is there’s a real ending — things will end in a very real way…Netflix is gonna do spin-offs… but the storyline where we started in the lab and Upside Down is one complete story.”
Although the story of Eleven, Vecna, and many of the other residents of Hawkins will come to an end next year, as Harbour suggested, there is already a spin-off in development. As yet, it is still not known what path the new series will take, as the Duffer Brothers have been keeping tight-lipped about the future of the franchise.
Stranger Things
Season 5 will arrive on Netflix sometime in 2025. Seasons 1-4 are currently streaming on Netflix.