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Credit: NetflixStranger Things has announced its new cast, and Eleven, the psychokinetic teen played by Millie Bobby Brown, is nowhere to be found.
The Duffer Brothers-created show was a huge breakout series for Netflix when its first season launched in 2016, instantly making stars out of child actors Millie Bobby Brown, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, and Caleb McLaughlin.
The upcoming final season of the show will reportedly close out the initial story of Eleven and the Upside Down, but unsurprisingly, Netflix is looking to extend the lifespan of Stranger Things as much as possible. An animated spinoff series has been confirmed to be in the works, as is a live-action show set in the universe of Stranger Things.
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However, it seems in order to keep the Stranger Things train going after the final season, the franchise is going to have to move away from Eleven and Millie Bobby Brown.
‘Stranger Things: The First Shadow’
The first official spinoff of Stranger Things will be a stage play titled Stranger Things: The First Shadow, which is set to premiere in November in London.
The show will be directed by Stephen Daldry and written by Kate Trefry from an original story by the Duffer Brothers, and, crucially, does not involve most of the main characters that we have come to know and love from throughout the Netflix series.
Instead, the play is a prequel following young versions of characters like David Harbour’s Chief Hopper and Winona Ryder’s Joyce Byers, who is listed as Joyce Maldonado, presumably her maiden name.
We will not see Eleven, Will Byers, Mike Wheeler, Lucas Sinclair, or Dustin Henderson in the play, as presumably none of them have even been born yet. Instead, the official cast (per Deadline) will feature Shane Attwooll (Chief Hopper), Isabella Pappas (Joyce Maldonado), Patrick Vaill (Dr. Brenner), Kemi Awoderu (Sue Anderson), Chase Brown (Lonnie Byers), Christopher Buckley (Bob Newby), Ammar Duffus (Charles Sinclair), Gilles Geary (Ted Wheeler), Florence Guy (Karen Childress), Max Harwood (Allen Munson), Michael Jibson (Victor Creel), Oscar Lloyd (James Hopper, Jr.), Louis McCartney (Henry Creel), Matthew Pidgeon (Father Newby), Calum Ross (Walter Henderson), Maisie Norma Seaton (Claudia Henderson), Lauren Ward (Virginia Creel), and Ella Karuna Williams (Patty Newby).
While many of these characters have appeared in the Netflix version of Stranger Things, some seem to be entirely new creations. The official synopsis of the stage play reads “Hawkins, 1959: a regular town with regular worries. Young Jim Hopper’s car won’t start, Bob Newby’s sister won’t take his radio show seriously and Joyce Maldonado just wants to graduate and get the hell out of town. When new student Henry Creel arrives, his family finds that a fresh start isn’t so easy… and the shadows of the past have a very long reach.”
Presumably, we’ll be getting a whole lot of canonical backstory as to how Hawkins got to be a hotbed of supernatural activity.
“I Think I’m Ready”
Most of the main cast of Stranger Things appears to be ready to be done with the show and move forward, most of all Millie Bobby Brown.
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The newly-minted (and controversial) novelist has said in interviews that she is grateful for the experience of the show, but it is basically time for things to end, a sentiment echoed by her on-screen father figure, David Harbour.
Stranger Things season 5 is apparently still years away, so hopefully, a stage play in London will be enough to satisfy fans for now.
Will you watch any Stranger Things spinoffs? Does the show work without Eleven and Millie Bobby Brown? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!