Stranger Things creator drops huge season five update as he shares behind the scenes photo

Stranger Things co-creator Ross Duffer has shared a huge update on the progress of series five of the Netflix show.

Ross took to Instagram on Wednesday to tell fans of the show that the production of the latest series has hit a significant milestone, which has led to fans of the show to speculate about when they might see it on our screens. The Stranger Things supremo posted a behind-the-scenes photo of the cast and production crew on his Instagram page, and captioned the post: "Week 24. Happy halfway to the best cast and crew ever."

Alongside the photo, Ross also shared a video of Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler in the hit show, placing a marble in a jar that tracks the progress of the production days. With the declaration that they were halfway through producing the next series, fans commented on the post asking whether this means that it will be wrapped by the end of the year and could be on Netflix as early as January 2025, though many others speculated that once post-production had been completed, it would be more likely that the series would premiere in the summer instead.

Show star Maya Hawke spoke about the new series on the podcast last week, which sees many of the cast reunite for what is believed to be the final season. Maya said: "Our showrunners, Matt and Ross [Duffer], take a lot of responsibility. They're very intense about the quality of the continued writing. It takes a long time to write each season, and it takes a long time to shoot them - we're basically making eight movies. The episodes are very long."

There have been a few setbacks to the production, which began last year, the most notably being the WGA strike in May 2023, which lasted until September. While the scripts had been finalised, the Duffer brothers wanted the writers on set, so decided to postpone production until that strike and then the actors' SAG dispute had been resolved.

David Harbour, who plays Jim Hopper in the show, told People about how quickly production began after the strikes had finished. He said: "They literally called me...10 minutes after the SAG thing on Twitter. The first [assistant director] is like, 'So, get the flight for you on Monday, right? We'll be acting in Atlanta'".

Millie Bobbie Brown, 19, who has played Eleven on the show since she was 12, has admitted that she is ready for Stranger Things to come to an end. She angered a number of fans when she said that starring in the show had "prevented" her from being involved in projects that she was "passionate" about.

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