Stranger Things Season 2: Everything We Know So Far

12. The Release Date & Time Setting

Netflix revealed at Super Bowl LI that Stranger Things would be returning at Halloween, which seems like a very fitting time for the show to drop. October 31, however, is on a Tuesday, while most Netflix shows tend to drop on a Friday.

To that end, yesterday (the 11th, naturally) we had the reveal that Stranger Things Season 2 was coming slightly earlier than expected, hitting Netflix on Friday 27 October, right in time for some perfect spooky weekend viewing.

While it might not be getting released on the exact date, the second season does still take place on Halloween - which explains why we've seen the kids dressed as Ghostbusters. It's also taking a bit of a jump forward in time, going from late 1983 to October 1984. Speaking of the decision to have the time jump, the Duffers told IGN:

Matt: "Yeah, you have to do the Harry Potter thing. You have to jump a year. Because like Gaten [Matarazzo], his voice has already dropped quite a bit, to the point where we couldn’t even do ADR with him. We had to pitch it way up. It’s dropped. He’s grown. As much as I would love to have it be Christmas right after that, it’s just not feasible, so we’re going to skip a year. They’ll be a year older and all their changes they’re going through, we’ll take that into account and kind of work that into the show.”

Ross: “It’s also just exciting having these initial conversations about it because the jump allows us to say “what happened in that year?” It actually opens up a lot more storytelling possibilities. These characters have changed and the audience has to sort of fill in those gaps of what went on in that year. To us, it’s exciting. So the fact that we have to make this jump, because of the kids, we’re trying to use that to our advantage.”