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Durham’s Duffer Brothers will launch a ‘Stranger Things’ spin-off at Netflix

Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer during production for Season 3 of the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”
Ross Duffer and Matt Duffer during production for Season 3 of the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” Netflix

Durham brothers and “Stranger Things” creators Matt and Ross Duffer, known professionally as The Duffer Brothers, have a new deal with Netflix to launch a spin-off of their monster-hit monster series.

The news was reported by entertainment site Deadline on Thursday.

“Stranger Things” follows a group of pre-teens and teens who must continually try to save their small town of Hawkins, Indiana, from a hellish force of evil. It just released the last part of its fourth season on the streaming service.

With the final two episodes of Season 4, which landed on July 1, “Stranger Things” became only the second Netflix series to cross the “one billion hours viewed” mark. (The first was “Squid Game”).

There is one more season of “Stranger Things” planned.

‘Stranger’ Durham references

While “Stranger Things” is not set in the Duffer hometown of Durham, the brothers sprinkle Bull City references throughout the series — from dropping common place names like Cornwallis Road, Eno River and Jordan Lake to slyer references such as name-checking childhood neighbors and even adding Durham as a tiny part of a plot point in Episode 2 of Season 4.

You can find our running list of all the Durham references here.

Though it’s set in Indiana and throws in Durham references, “Stranger Things” is filmed mostly in Georgia.

The Duffer Brothers have committed to several new projects with Netflix, according to Deadline, and have formed Upside Down Pictures to handle them. (There were no additional details given about the “Stranger Things” spin-off, but we wouldn’t be mad about an Erica Sinclair-centered project.)

In addition to the spin-off, the Duffer Brothers will adapt the Stephen King/Peter Straub 1984 novel “The Talisman” to series, in conjunction with Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television, says Deadline.

(L to R) Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington in Season 4 of the Netflix series “Stranger Things.”
(L to R) Gaten Matarazzo as Dustin Henderson and Joe Keery as Steve Harrington in Season 4 of the Netflix series “Stranger Things.” Courtesy of Netflix

This story was originally published July 7, 2022 at 3:31 PM with the headline "Durham’s Duffer Brothers will launch a ‘Stranger Things’ spin-off at Netflix."

Brooke Cain
The News & Observer
Brooke Cain is a North Carolina native who has worked at The News & Observer and McClatchy for more than 30 years as a researcher, reporter and media writer. She is the National Service Journalism Editor for McClatchy. 
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