At the moment, Stranger Things is riding high on the success of its recently debuted fourth season and is, undoubtedly, the most successful original show for Netflix. And yet, there was a time, when series star David Harbour was absolutely sure that the series would fail to see the light of day beyond its first season. One of the show’s most crucial and beloved stars had no faith in its future, why?
David Harbour’s zero confidence in Strangers Things stemmed from a valid reason
When Stranger Things started airing back in 2016, the Duffer Brothers were allotted a small budget of $6 million per episode. While it may sound like a lot, for a show like Stranger Things that has a plot relying heavily on fantastical elements, the budget has to be much higher to allow it to tell a story whose visuals match the expectations of the viewers, which were hyped by the promises the storyline made.
Throughout the history of TV — and now countless streamers — there have been many shows whose potential to be successful took a massive hit because of their small budget that failed to do justice to their impressive plots. For Harbour, Netflix putting Stranger Things in the same basket was the surefire sign of the series’ doomed future.
During his appearance on BBC’s The One Show, the Emmy-nominated actor, who plays Jim Hopper in the series, revealed that back when he was shooting the first season of the show, he was losing hope as they inched towards wrapping up the production
“I remember when we were shooting the first season. We were down in Atlanta, Netflix had given us a budget of about $20,” Harbour said. “Halfway through I remember my hair person coming up to me, like about episode four we were shooting, and she was like, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna work.’”
“By the time we finished, we wrapped, I thought we wouldn’t get a second season, we’d be the first Netflix show kind of ever to never get a second season. We thought no one would watch it, it was going to be a disaster.”
The constraint on the budget of season one majorly influenced the plot and changed many crucial points. The Duffer Brothers once revealed to Insider that they originally planned to shoot the series in Montauk but had to switch to Indiana as their former option wasn’t financially feasible. The relatively low funds also obviously affected how they shot many of the scenes, like Eleven’s visions in the void or the creepy Upside-Down.
But the brothers shared that even though they had less money to invest in the making of the series, their creativity was working overtime. There is no denying that the low budget was definitely an issue for the show’s creators, the love and adoration fans of the show have for it and its characters are proof that despite the hurdles, the team managed to not let it be in the way of creating some of the best scenes seen in thriller-horror series ever.
Stranger Things season 4 gigantic budget speaks for itself
While Stranger Things kicked off its journey with a budget that rocked even David Harbour’s confidence, in the present, the show is one of Netflix’s big-budget shows. At a time when the streamer is cutting corners and pulling all stops to overcome the major financial losses it has incurred, Netflix reportedly poured over a billion into the making of the recently debuted fourth season.
As per the Wall Street Journal, every episode of the season was allocated a “per-episode cost of $30 million.” As per the Hollywood Reporter, for the third season, David Harbour and Winona Ryder reportedly earned $350,000 an episode and Millie Bobby Brown’s paycheck probably amounted to $300,000 per episode, while the likes of Finn Wolfhard and others took home $250,000 for every episode.
This clearly shows that Netflix has come a long way in terms of having faith in Stranger Things and its potential to earn back its investments. And needless to say, the show has not disappointed. The recently-released fourth season of the series is still reigning as the most popular English-language TV season in the streamer’s history and even earned a whopping 13 nominations at the 74th Primetime Emmy Awards!
Though Stranger Things‘ journey will sadly conclude with a fifth and final season, given the show’s ample success and the ever-increasing number of its fans its supernatural world will continue to live on in the form of a spinoff series that is being meticulously planned out. If only the past David Harbour could see how wrong he was.
