Brothers in Rhythm
MATT AND ROSS DUFFER ON THE MOST DANGEROUS SUMMER IN HAWKINS YET
How do you keep raising the bar?
matt Our approach has never changed. We always go up, we’re going to approach this the same way we approached season one. Which is we just write what excites us. We have three writers, Curtis, Kate and Paul, they’re our friends and our collaborators. The way the show works is we get into a small room with them and we all just throw out what do we want to see, what would make us excited.
Which ideas pushed that button for you this season?
ROSS Something that was huge for the season, in terms of those initial brainstorms, was just knowing that it was going to be summer. This is the kids’ last summer before high school. Certainly we remember that growing up, we had a fun time that summer but also things were changing. Friends were going to different schools and you were falling apart from certain friends. It was an emotional time and a scary time too because you didn’t know what the future was going to hold. So we wanted to use that as an anchor for sort of the character development in this season.
What’s the biggest change to the show this season?
matt The biggest new thing this year is Starcourt Mall. With this we’re able to introduce so much ’80s! Our production designer Chris Trujillo and our set designer Jess Royal, they took over this dying modern day mall and completely transformed it into an ’80s mall. It really was like stepping back in time. Everyone who went in there was just a blast of nostalgia. The movie theatre inside the mall, you don’t see that anymore. Back To The Future plays there and we get to see that. For us that’s exciting, because it came out on that July Fourth weekend in 1985, which we’re thrilled by. It’s a huge touchstone for us, that film.
is the danger going to blow people away this season?
ROSS The scope of the show goes up each year and I think this is certainly the biggest season that we’ve ever done. It’s the most challenging in terms of visual effects and stunts, the overall scope of the show, the number of locations. We always try to keep grounding that in the characters, their arcs and their development.
What do you think audiences will take from season three?
matt We want people to watch season three to experience the full range of emotions: you want people to laugh, you want people to cry, you want people to scream. And the great thing is we kind of treat
Stranger Things as a long-form movie. And the really great thing about that is I think we get to do all of that – you have elements of comedy and horror and drama, all of that in the show. So the hope is that we’re not leaning too heavily into any of those areas and that you get a little bit of everything, like the best Spielberg or the best Stephen King. You experience every single emotion possible.
ROSS And I believe there are some twists and turns that people won’t see coming...
What makes season three even bigger and better?
matt The big difference with season three is that there are more threats and more villains in the show. The Mind Flayer – he spreads out in a way that he’s never spread out before.
ROSS The Mind Flayer has learned from his mistakes in season two. He’s upped the ante in a big way in this season.
matt Much larger, much scarier than demogorgons. This is a video game – last year was level three and this is like skipping to level seven. It’s intense!