Netflix Announces New Live-Action Stranger Things Prequel Series Other Worlds for 2028
Netflix has officially announced a new live-action Stranger Things spinoff, a prequel series titled Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure that is set to premiere in 2028. The streamer confirmed the project this morning on “Stranger Things Day,” marking the franchise’s first live-action follow-up since the flagship series ended last year and the animated spinoff Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 debuted.
A Different Time and Place
Other Worlds is set in Marion, Nevada, in April 1955, roughly three decades before the events of the original series and before the Broadway play Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Plot details are being kept under wraps, but the first teaser opens on an abandoned bicycle with a radio strapped to its handlebars lying in a dark field, before a thunderous sound breaks open the sky, hinting at another version of the Upside Down. As the clip’s own tagline puts it, “before Hawkins, there was Marion.” Production on the series will take place in and around New Mexico.
Who’s Behind Other Worlds
The series comes from co-creators and executive producers Matt and Ross Duffer and longtime Stranger Things writer Kate Trefry, who also wrote the stage play The First Shadow and will serve as Other Worlds’ showrunner. BAFTA and Golden Globe winning director Joe Wright, known for Atonement, Darkest Hour, and Pride & Prejudice, will direct the first three episodes. Shawn Levy returns as an executive producer through his 21 Laps banner alongside Paul Dichter, Shelley Meals, Andrea Sperling, and Pavlina Hatoupis, with the Duffer Brothers also producing through their Upside Down Pictures company.
No casting has been revealed yet. In a joint statement, the Duffer Brothers said the new series would carry the same spirit as the original while introducing a new setting, new heroes, and new villains that they are not yet able to discuss, adding that casting is next. Trefry, who got her start in Hollywood working for the Duffers, called the chance to lead the new chapter a dream come true, while executive producer Jinny Howe, Netflix’s head of scripted series for the US and Canada, framed the prequel as a new dimension of the universe built on the same mystery and heart that made the flagship series a phenomenon.
Expanding a Five-Season Phenomenon
Stranger Things ran for five seasons on Netflix between 2016 and last year, with its finale even playing in theaters over New Year’s and helping the show close out as Netflix’s biggest English-language premiere week. The franchise has since continued with the animated series Tales From ’85, a Tony-winning stage production, live experiences at Netflix House, and a line of books. Other Worlds now becomes its first new live-action chapter since the mothership series wrapped, expanding the world beyond Hawkins for the first time since it began in 2016.
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Picture Source: Netflix
