'Stranger Things' Season 2 Lays Groundwork For Season 3, Won't Hit Spring Release Date

While the first season of Stranger Things was very much a self-contained story, series director Shawn Levy told audiences at a Real Steel Q&A (he directed) that the groundwork is already being laid for Season 3. Collider was there. It sounds like Stranger Things Season 2 is all set to embrace a more elaborate continuity.

Production on Stranger Things Season 2 is underway. Here’s the cast at a table read:

But, big surprise, there’s not yet a release date. And Levy told the assembled audience that you shouldn’t expect any early release date miracles. “You can do a little math, we’re not magicians, so there’s no way it launches in Spring since I just admitted we started filming today and we’re doing nine.”

Still, with production underway there’s no reason Stranger Things Season 2 couldn’t hit the same mid-July window as the series premiere.

So far, nothing unexpected. What’s a little more interesting is that, contrary to claims that Stranger Things ’ second season would be similarly self-contained (and inspired by The Temple of Doom, Karate Kid and Gremlins… though Night of the Creeps, with its slugs, seems the most obvious forerunner), Levy indicated that it would contain story threads intended for Season 3:

“We are not gonna be caught off guard and we don’t wanna be making stuff up like the day before we have to write it and make it, so we are definitely optimistic and we have started thinking ahead.”

So, what will Stranger Things Season 2 be about? Well, probably some monsters and stuff, but Levy had a really boring answer too:

“We are definitely sticking primarily with our core group, and what is different, how are they changed from the experience of last season… maybe ‘normal’ is never possible again… Will Byers was in that Upside Down for a while. So Season 2 is about this determined desire to return to normalcy in Hawkins, in the Byers family, in that group of friends, and it’s the struggle to reclaim normalcy and maybe the impossibility of it.”

So far this all sounds a little vague. The Stranger Things Season 2 episode titles (video at the top) are a little more evocative, so there’s still plenty of reason to be excited. We’ll see whether Season 2 can recapture the magic in the second half of 2017.