‘Stranger Things’ Season 2 Waiting for Renewal on Netflix; Winona Ryder Initially Intimidated with TV Role

‘Stranger Things’ season 2 is yet to be renewed on Netflix. Co-creators Matt and Ross Duffer admitted that they wanted to delve deeper into the show’s mythos in possible subsequent seasons. Meanwhile, star Winona Ryder admitted that she was initially intimidated with shifting to a television role.

According to E! News, Netflix is yet to order a second season renewal for the supernatural-horror web television series that pays homage to cult horror favorites from the 1980s. During an interview during their Summer TCA Press Tour presentation, co-creator Matt Duffer said that season 1 left several questions unanswered.

He said, "We wanted to feel like a big movie, so we wanted to solve that main tension of where Will went and what happened to him… But then there's the bigger mythology behind what happened, so there's definitely a lot of dangling threads at the end…if people wanted it and Netflix wanted it, we could explore it and continue the storyline." His brother Ross added, “It’s about giving enough so the audience feels satisfied.”

The series is set in a town called Hawkins in Indiana in the 1980s and follows a boy named Will who mysteriously vanishes one evening on his way home following an encounter with a strange creature. A telekinetic girl soon appears and happens to know the boy’s whereabouts. As his family and the rest of the community attempt to search for him, they stumble on secret government experiments as well as supernatural forces.

It was released by Netflix on July 2016 to positive reviews from critics. Season 1 contained eight episodes, with the finale airing on July 15. It starred Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Charlie Heaton, and Matthew Modine among others.

The Duffer brothers, who directed the series, hinted that they wanted to explore the show’s mythology more in the next possible seasons. According to Express.co.uk, they said, "With the Upside Down, we have a 30-page document that is pretty intricate in terms of what it all means, and where this monster actually came from, and why aren't there more monsters – we have all this stuff that we just didn't have time for, or we didn't feel like we needed to get into in season one, because of the main tension of Will... We have that whole other world that we haven't fully explored in this season, and that was very purposeful."

Matt Duffer added, "We wanted a simple drive and a somewhat simple mystery with bizarre pops of supernatural horror and then add a larger mythology behind this rift that we only know and refer to as the Upside Down because that's what the boys decide to call it."

The Duffer brothers revealed that they drew inspiration from directors such as David Lynch and Steven Spielberg to tell stories of ordinary people encountering extraordinary things. They recalled screening 1,000 child actors from around the globe as soon as Netflix ordered their show.

Meanwhile, Ryder admitted that she was initially intimidated with her shift to television. According to Deadline, she said, “What had initially scared me is you could only read [one episode at a time], you couldn’t read the whole thing… I adjusted my perspective and used my own confusion to try to figure what was going on for my character… The reaction has been completely overwhelming in the best possible way. I don’t think I was expecting it.”

The 44-year old actress is one of the most prolific actresses of the 1990s after making her film debut in 1986’s ‘Lucas’. She rose to international stardom with films such as ‘Beetlejuice’, ‘Heathers’, ‘Edward Scissorhands’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Reality Bites’, ‘Little Women’, and ‘Girl, Interrupted’.

‘Stranger Things’ is a supernatural-horror and science-fiction web television series created for Netflix. It was written and directed by the Duffer Brothers and executive produced by Shawn Levy.