Last seen spewing monster-slugs into the nearest sink, Will Byers is all set to become the focal point of Stranger Things season 2 following his harrowing stint in the fantastical alternate reality known as the Upside Down.
At least, that’s according to series producer and director Shawn Levy, who spoke with Mashable ahead of the show’s timely Halloween return later this year. Noah Schnapp is back, back, back to reprise as the soft-spoken Will, and though the Demogorgon was effectively vanquished at the tail-end of Stranger Things season 1 – at the expense of Millie Bobby Brown’s Eleven, it seems – the Upside Down still lurks on every street corner of Hawkins, Indiana.
That’s something that shone through in the inaugural Super Bowl teaser for the show’s second season and here, Shawn Levy offers some context on bringing Will Byers back into the thick of the story.
Will Byers is very much at the center of Season 2. Noah steps up in the most staggering way. The Duffers and I, depending on who’s directing when, we keep sending texts to each other going, ‘holy shit, Noah is crushing it’ and we knew he had it in him, and it’s really now to get in that moment, and put him firmly in the thick of story.
Wary of overstaying their welcome, Levy and the Duffers – namely Matt and Ross Duffer – have already hinted that Stranger Things will stretch for around four or five seasons, and though it’s far too soon for Netflix to issue the green light, Levy touched on the various story ideas that are being reserved for “future chapters” in the series.
As the episodes were written by the Duffers, they realized that there was too much story for nine episodes. So it forced us to be judicious in which stories we tell this season. So one of the surprises was, not all of our grand ideas are going to be serviced in one season… If we had 40 ideas going into the season, 30 [we] are going to pick, and the rest go in the back of our head for, hopefully, future chapters.
Stranger Things season 2 will be with us in time for Halloween, and Netflix’s nostalgic original series recently made room in its ranks for former Nashville star Will Chase.
