Credit: Inside the MagicMillie Bobby Brown doesn’t need Stranger Things anymore: she has a massive new hit on Netflix.
Stranger Things fans will likely have to wait for months for filming on season 5 to wrap, let alone for the footage to be edited, re-shot, and finally dropped on Netflix. It is extraordinarily frustrating for fans of the hugely popular supernatural series created by the Duffer Brothers, but it appears that no one is more ready to finally move on from the series than Eleven herself, Millie Bobby Brown.
Millie Bobby Brown Wants Out of ‘Stranger Things’
It has been clear for quite some time that Millie Bobby Brown wants Stranger Things to finally finish and let her move on to a presumably enormously successful film career. Although Brown inarguably owes her place as a global star to the show, it is also fair to imagine being pigeonholed as a single career for the majority of your career (and life as a teenager) is a bit annoying.
Related: Millie Bobby Brown is No Longer Eleven from ‘Stranger Things’, Director Confirms
Millie Bobby Brown has been open in recent interviews that she feels ready to leave the Netflix series, telling an interviewer, “It’s like graduating high school, it’s like senior year. You’re ready to go and blossom and flourish, and you’re grateful for the time you’ve had, but it’s time to create your own message and live your own life.”
The actress has said that Stranger Things season 5 still has an astonishing nine months left of filming, which could be partly blamed on the WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes of 2023 delaying things. But, for comparison, Steven Spielberg completed principal photography on Jurassic Park (1993) in three months, so what’s really taking Netflix so long?
MBB Is Already Moving Onto Other Projects in Multiple Fields
Probably nothing demonstrates Millie Bobby Brown’s eagerness to shake her association with Stranger Things than her numerous projects outside the show.
She already kicked off a new franchise at Netflix with Enola Holmes (2020), in which she portrayed the younger sister of the most yoked Sherlock Holmes ever (Henry Cavill) and solved Victorian-era crimes. The well-received adventure film was followed by Enola Holmes 2 in 2022, but news of a third installment seems to have grown scarce.
Related: Millie Bobby Brown Speaks Out on ‘Stranger Things’ as New Eleven Actress Surfaces
Perhaps that’s because of her numerous other endeavors, including publishing her debut novel, the World War II-era Nineteen Steps. Brown has described the book as being linked to her own family history and as a “historical novel about an amazing, courageous 18-year-old woman called Nellie Morris, who lives with her family in Bethnal Green, in London’s East End, while the Second World War rages on around them.” She has also been slammed with some unpleasant ghostwriter allegations regarding Nineteen Steps, but we’ll move on from those for now.
As befits a budding mogul, Millie Bobby Brown has also moved into the very lucrative beauty field and has an entire line of skincare products under the name Florence by Mills, many of which she personally models on her Instagram page.
Move Over, ‘Stranger Things’
However, all of those projects are currently dwarfed by the popularity of her new Netflix film, Damsel. The fantasy adventure film premiered on Netflix on March 8 and instantly rocked to the top of the English-language movie charts. Currently, Damsel is the number #1 most-watched English film on the most popular streaming platform in the world, with Netflix reporting a staggering 64,800,000 hours watched in less than a week.
That easily demolishes the nearest two runner-ups, Code 8 Part II, and the Adam Sandler science fiction film Spaceman, both of whom have not yet cracked 20,000,000 hours. Clearly, Netflix is doing the smart thing by continuing to bet on Millie Bobby Brown, even outside of Stranger Things. In addition to Brown, Damsel stars Ray Winstone, Nick Robinson, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Angela Bassett, Robin Wright, and a CGI dragon.
Netflix, ‘Stranger Things,’ and the Future of MBB
It is likely that even the huge numbers of Damsel will be crushed by Stranger Things season 5 whenever it finally premieres on Netflix. Even if Millie Bobby Brown is eager to move on from the series, it remains one of the streaming service’s signature shows and one of the world’s most anticipated TV shows. In addition to Brown, co-stars Winona Ryder, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, Sadie Sink, Joe Keery, Maya Hawke, and Brett Gelman are all expected to return.
That won’t be the end of the very lucrative Netflix-Millie Bobby Brown partnership, however. The actress will star alongside Chris Pratt in The Electric State, a science fiction adventure film adapted from the works of Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag. The film is scheduled to be released on Netflix sometime this year and will no doubt be yet another movie to crush viewing numbers before Stranger Things even manages to premiere.
What is taking Stranger Things season 5 so long? Let us know your theories in the comments below!