In the wake of the success of season four of Stranger things Matt and Ross Duffer, the masterminds behind the series, have set up production house Upside Down Pictures. Netflix immediately placed a large order with its goldcrests.
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‘It is no coincidence that Stranger things has become the epic pop culture phenomenon it is today,” Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said of the Duffer brothers’ ingenuity. Matt and Ross Duffer, twins, were just novices in television when they started making the nostalgic fantasy series for Netflix. When they will soon have the fifth and final season canned, they will be one of the most influential names in the world. Netflix doesn’t want to lose them just like that.
When the brothers announced that they had started their own production company – Upside Down Pictures, a nod to their big hit – it sounded in the same breath that Netflix has placed a large order. Although there is an end to the series Stranger things, the universe is expanded. In addition to a play, a lot of thought is being given to a spin-off series. Stranger things seems to be walking the path of Harry Potter. After the seventh and final part, author JK Rowling wrote the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child† The film series appeared in cinemas Fantastic beasts.
– Matt and Ross Duffer. Photo: AFP
Manga, Stephen King en Spielberg
Upside Down Productions and Netflix are also announcing a TV adaptation of the hit manga and anime series Death Note† The Japanese story of a high school student who is given the power to decide life and death was already filmed by Netflix in 2017. That version was reviled even by the biggest fans. So the Duffer brothers have a few things to put right.
Furthermore, the 80s remain a source of inspiration. The talisman, a 1984 book by Stephen King and Peter Straub, is being made into a movie with the help of Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television. The story, about a young man who travels between two worlds to save his mother’s life, contains fantasy, also sci-fi and horror elements. “It has everything we love,” the Duffers said.
Jeffrey Addis and Will Matthews, who created the fantasy series for Netflix Dark crystal: age of resistance are then allowed to develop an original idea. The development of the new series is overseen by Hilary Leavitt, a rising star in the American television world. Leavitt had oversaw the production of series like Orphan Black in Ozark† The Netflix deal with the Duffer brothers would be in the billions.
Chicken with golden eggs
For Netflix, which faces increasing competition from Disney+, HBO and Apple, Stranger things perhaps the most valuable series. That became painfully clear last winter. Due to corona, the recordings were delayed, so that it could not come out with a new season. At the time, this was cited by several analysts as one of the reasons that the company lost subscribers for the first time. The goose that lays the golden eggs may also cost something: an episode of the last season cost an average of 28 million euros, twice as much as what HBO spent on the last season of Game of thrones.
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