Production on the third season of Netflix’s hit sci-fi show
Stranger Things kicked off earlier this year and while we haven’t yet seen any promotional material for the highly anticipated season, star David Harbour has teased us with a few more nuggets of detail. Speaking to Deadline, Harbour, who nabbed a Supporting Actor Emmy nomination for his role as Jim Hopper, spoke a bit about the inspiration of Season 3.
“If you’re a real fan of Stranger Things and you really want to know, I would go look at the great films that were released in ’85, of which there were many, and just go down that list and think of the possibilities that we could be going with. I think it is a specific season to 1985, and so you’ll see references to that,” Harbour said, without revealing any specific movies. Going down
the list of 1985’s blockbusters, the most notable film on the list is
Back to the Future, which topped the domestic charts that year. However, 1985 also saw the release of
The Goonies and
The Breakfast Club, both of which could inspire the upcoming season.
Harbour, who described Season 1 as
“very Stephen King-y” and Season 2 as
“more Spielberg-y,” teased that the Duffer Brothers, Shawn Levy, and the rest of the cast and crew are taking more risks with Season 3. He added:
“We’re experimenting a lot this season, and we’re taking risks, and I hope that they pay off but they are risks. We’re going into territories we’ve never been to before, and it’s exciting.”
Not much is known about Season 3, although we do know it
will feature a time hop and pick up in 1985. However, Harbour did shed a little light in terms of what fans can expect from his character which he says will be a better combination of the more daring Hopper from Season 1 along with the softer, more father version we saw in Season 2.
“There was a sort of swashbuckling guy that we put on the back burner,” he said,
“so I think we’ll see a little more of the swashbuckling Hopper you may have liked from Season 1. It’s almost like [Season] 1 plus two, equals three. It’s like you have this third character now, who goes back to the swashbuckling guy of Season 1, but also has behind him this adopted daughter who he loves very much, so it’s really cool.” With that description, perhaps it's worth mentioning that 1985 also saw the release of
Rambo: First Blood Part II. In December of last year, Harbour revealed a few
character-specific storylines he hoped would be explored in Season 3.
Production on season three of
Stranger Things kicked off in April. While we don't yet have an exact date, it's expected to premiere sometime in 2019.