With the long haul of making and releasing the fourth season of Stranger Things now behind them, creators Matt and Ross Duffer are taking a break before opening the writers' room for Season 5 in August. But they're not taking the time off completely, as they've announced a production company called Upside Down Pictures and a raft of new projects including a Stranger Things stage adaptation, the previously mooted spin-off plus several other projects.
According to the press statement from Netflix – where the new company will not-so-surprisingly be based – the aim for this team is "to create the kind of stories that inspired the Duffers growing up - stories that take place at that beautiful crossroads where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, where big spectacle co-exists with intimate character work, where heart wins out over cynicism." The brothers have hired Hilary Leavitt, an executive who has overseen shows such as Orphan Black and Ozark to run the company.
Among the big projects planned are the Things spin-off that the brothers have been teasing for a while, and their adaptation of Stephen King's The Talisman, which was announced last year.
New to this announcement is the intriguing word that Stephen Daldry will direct and produce a stage play "set within the world and mythology of Stranger Things", plus a new live-action series adaptation of manga title Death Note (which Netflix previously turned into a movie in 2017 with Adam Wingard directing) and an untitled series from Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews, who created Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance.
So... yes, they're not planning to rest on those laurels for long at all.