Aurora Starchild
The good news is that Stranger Things just came out with its fourth season on May 27. Like all Netflix series, a whole pile of episodes are released simultaneously. This means you can binge watch at your leisure. Netflix is, however, saving the last two episodes of season 4 for July 1st. So, you’ll have to watch it in two chunks.
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Each episode is also increasing in time from 44 minutes to 77 minutes. You’ll basically be watching nine movie-length episodes.
The bad news? The company announced that Stranger Things: Season 5 is on its way and it’s going to close out the show as the finale. This has left fans scratching their heads. Some are worried that their favorite show is going the way of Mindhunter or Magnum P.I., both of which may have ceased production due to high costs and not enough viewers.
Ultimately, it was allegedly the producer, David Fincher, who dropped from the scene. Contracts were cut and the show was axed. Finch went on to produce Mank and a second season of Love Death + Robots.
Netflix recently suffered from a massive $50 billion stock market drop. It was the worst stock market drop of 2022 according to the S&P 500 as Netflix lost 35% of its worth in shares.
The assumption is that Netflix lost viewers due to its price hike in services last month. The lowest tiered plan went up from $8.99 to $9.99 and the next tier went from $13.99 to $15.49. For those who have not yet gotten their lives (and their wallets) back in order après-pandemic, every dollar counts. And with other streaming services such as Disney+ (which can be bundled with Hulu), the competition might be drawing Netflix subscribers away. Rumor is that Netflix is working on fixing this problem, but we still don’t know how.
Regarding Stranger Things: season 4, the cost to produce one single episode is reported to be $30 million. That’s a huge increase compared to season 1, which reportedly cost $6 million per episode. It might be that the cost to produce the show is just so high, and viewer expectations are so high, that Netflix simply can’t continue to outdo itself.
It’s hard to really pinpoint why our beloved sci-fi-horror show is wrapping up. After all, people love it. It scores in the top 5 on a number of lists and appeals to a massive audience. May it’s just that all good things come to an end. Keep your eyes peeled for more news on the season 5 finale.
