Fans should be wary of a backside-numbing experience, as the fourth season Stranger Things has had its runtime announced, and it’s no quick in-and-out adventure.
The forthcoming season was announced back in 2019, and has spent a lengthy time in development, and creators of the series have now offered a reason why.
Directorial duo Matt and Ross Duffer explained to Deadline the fourth season of the much-hailed streaming series won’t exactly be full of short and sweet episodes. Instead of episodes clocking in at a standard 40 minutes, they will all run over an hour. The push towards a more cinematic experience comes with the Duffer brothers hoping for a more “epic” quality.
“I don’t think we have an episode clocking in under an hour – even in Season 1 there were episodes that were like 35 minutes. You kind of forget that. This season, they’re very long, so I think it’s almost double the length of any season. So that’s one reason it’s taken so long. It does have this sort of epic quality to it. It’s a different feel, for sure.”
With nine episodes in the season, the overall binge-watch for viewers could be a hectic nine hours or more. The confirmation from the Duffers also backs up earlier assessments that episodes of the new season will be close to ‘feature length’. The hit Netflix series has already had its fifth and final season confirmed, though there’s no timeline on when we can expect that to premiere.
The fourth season of Stranger Things will premiere exclusively on Netflix from May 27, and instead of having all episodes come out of the one block, they’ll be released weekly.