‘Stranger Things Season 5’: Finn Wolfhard Contradicts Maya Hawke on Episode Length: “Not every episode is like a full-blown movie”

‘Stranger Things’ season 5 is confirmed to come out in 2025. We haven’t seen any official footage yet, just behind-the-scenes photos, but that should (hopefully) change soon. We know little about the show plot-wise but some details regarding technical stuff were revealed by the stars of the show themselves.

Maya Hawke previously stated on the ‘Podcrushed’ podcast that ‘Stranger Things 5’ would be so massive that it would take an entire year to film. She described the season as essentially consisting of “eight movies,” emphasizing that the episodes would be “very long.”

Now Finn Wolfhard contradicted that statement. He described the upcoming season as a long and highly emotional season but clarified that not every episode will be feature-length. While some episodes will have a film-like runtime, others will be shorter, around 40 to 45 minutes.

It’s definitely a long season. Not every episode is like a full-blown movie, but there are definitely some episodes this year that the runtime is definitely film-length. When all that adds up, I guess they are like little micro-movies. But there are some episodes that are still 40 minutes, 45 mins.

He defended the varying episode lengths emphasizing that the extended runtimes are necessary to properly conclude the arcs of the show’s large ensemble cast. He explained that giving each character a satisfying ending requires taking the time to do it right.

He also shared his experience of reading the series finale with the cast for the first time, describing it as “unbelievably emotional.” The cold read was overwhelming and deeply special, even more emotional than he had expected, leaving him excited for fans to see how the story concludes.

I read it with the cast and it was unbelievably emotional. We cold read it. We’d never read it before, so this was the first time we were all reading everything, and so it was very overwhelming and really special. It was definitely one of those things that was much more emotional than I thought it was going to be. But I’m really happy about it and excited for it to come out.

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