'Stranger Things 5' Will Be Shorter Than '4', Creators Confirm

Before we dive in, this article contains spoilers for Vol. 1 only. Right Stranger Things fans. Big weekend, right? We knew Vol. 2 wasn’t going to mess around. The Duffer brothers had already dropped a few morbid teases and that ‘Protect Steve’ billboard Netflix released had us all tentatively waiting on edge.

I won’t be diving into what any of those teases amounted to for the benefit of those who still need to catch up (meaning me), but I do come to you with some exciting news about season five. Truthfully, it’s probably a few years away but it’s never too early to start thinking about what’s coming next.

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Prior to Stranger Things 4’s premiere, one of the major talking points was the show’s lengthy runtime. In its entirety, Stranger Things’ fourth season equated to over 13 hours of content, with the final episode alone coming in at 2 hours and 30 minutes. According to the Duffer brothers though, you shouldn’t expect the same from season five.

Speaking to Collider, show creators Matt and Ross Duffer confirmed that they’ll be trimming down the runtimes for Stranger Things’ fifth and final season. That being said, it’s still not going to be short as the duo are hoping to create eight episodes with a runtime of 10 hours.

"I think we're aiming for eight [episodes] again. We don't want it to be 13 hours,” Matt Duffer said. We're aiming for more like 10 hours or something. I think it's going to be longer than season one because we just have so much to wrap up, but I don't think it's going to be as long as season four."

With production on season five yet to begin, the Duffer brothers could certainly change their plans. Speaking to the Happy Sad Confused podcast, the duo confirmed that Stranger Things’ series finale would be feature length. They even went as far to compare it to The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King which has a runtime of over three hours.

Matt explained, “If you just watch Return of the King, it feels like too many endings. If you watch all of them back-to-back, which I’ve done multiple times, it’s exactly right. If it were any shorter, it would feel cheap and wrong." We’ve likely got a long wait ahead of us, but it sure sounds like something good will come out of it.