Stranger Things creators say new season is a sequel — even though sequels suck

Brotherly duo Ross and Matt Duffer spoke to Entertainment Weekly today about Stranger Things 2, the sequel to Netflix’s unexpected supernatural hit.

Not that Netflix was initially happy about calling it that.

“When we started describing it as a sequel,” Matt told EW, “Netflix was like, ‘Don’t do that, because sequels are known to be bad. I was like, ‘Yes, but what about T2 and Aliens and Toy Story 2 and Godfather II?’”

The Duffer brothers’ argument eventually won out — and Netflix’s ad campaign has leaned hard on the comparisons to cinema.

For their part, the brothers are confident that they’ve delivered a good sequel — not a bad sequel — something that feels the same but where the stakes are higher and the action is bigger.

And Stranger Things 2 has taken the responsibility of being “bigger” quite seriously. Like its predecessor, Stranger Things 2 will be made of several intertwining stories that will all eventually lead to the series’ true threat. But while the looming danger in Stranger Things was the demogorgon, in Stranger Things 2 it appears to be the “shadow monster,” which is how Will Byers refers to the massive hanging creature he keeps seeing in the sky whenever he flashes back into the Upside Down.

Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike, the de facto leader of the show’s core gang of kids, says that the new installment is “Stranger Things but just sorta hopped up a little. It’s almost like season 1 was drinking a Coke and season 2 they drank a Red Bull.”