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Fans are still processing the mind-blowing Part 1 of the fourth season of Netflix’s Stranger Things. The science fiction horror drama series has always been a strong fan favorite since its premiere in 2016, and has been recognized with multiple awards and accolades.

Season 4 has taken things to a new level, though, and is already being billed as the best of the show so far. The season consists of nine episodes, the first seven of which were released on May 27.

The much anticipated final two installments will be made available to stream on Netflix in early July, and the eagerness for their release is now palpable. At the same time, the series has already been confirmed for a fifth and final season, which – barring any unforeseen circumstances, is expected to arrive at some point in 2023.

Stranger Things is the brainchild of Duffer brothers Ross and Matt, who are usually in charge of outlining the seasons, and have also written and directed multiple episodes.

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As fans look forward to Part 2 of the current season, the Duffer brothers already have their mind on the upcoming one.

The Duffer Brothers Pitched ‘Stranger Things’ To 15 Networks Before Netflix Commissioned It

Matt and Ross Duffer are well known for their meticulous work. They created Stranger Things after a period apprenticing under M. Night Shyamalan in the director’s mystery drama series on Fox, Wayward Pines.

When the brothers landed on the idea for Stranger Things, they wrote a complete script for a pilot episode, as well as a pitch book that consisted of 20 pages.

“We wrote one script for it, the pilot, which is very close to the first episode as it exists now,” Matt said in a 2016 interview with the New York Times. “And then we made a 20-page pitch book, where we took an old Stephen King book cover, and we had a lot of imagery from a lot of the movies that we’re referencing.”

Armed with these two, they set about finding a home for the network, but they had to go through a number of networks before Netflix bought into the vision they had.

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“I think we had 15 pitches, and it was all passes,” Matt continued. “And then the next week, offers started to come in, and luckily Netflix understood it right away.”

Season 4 Is The ‘Beginning Of The End’ For ‘Stranger Things’

As Ross and Matt Duffer were preparing to start work on Season 4 of Stranger Things, they knew that their tone had to change from what it had been in the first three seasons.

With this season being the penultimate one, they viewed it as the beginning of the end for the show, and therefore felt that they had to start revealing some of the mysteries about the story.

“Season 3 was more like, we're just kind of playing in the sandbox,” Matt explained in a separate interview that the brothers did with Collider earlier this year. “That's what it felt like to me, it's like, ‘Oh, we got all our toys, let’s play’. [But] Season 4, it's like, ‘Okay, we got to start telling people, we got to start revealing.’”

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Ross reinforced his brother’s sentiments in the same interview, saying: “There's a couple more big surprises [to come] I think, but we really wanted to go, ‘Okay, we're in end game territory now. So let's start showing our hand a little bit.’”

Have The Duffer Brothers Already Scripted Season 5 Of ‘Stranger Things’?

Given their record of putting in extensive work in their projects, it is not surprising to learn that the Duffer brothers were already thinking forward to Season 5 even before Season 4 began.

Matt and Ross have not confirmed whether they have gotten down to the actual scripting of the final season, but they already outlined the story arc. According to the two identical twin brothers, Season 4 and Season 5 are one combined story broken down into two parts.

“We had all the scripts [for Season 4] before we started shooting, so we could look at the whole thing as a whole,” Matt confirmed in the Collider interview. “And we outlined all of [Season] 5. So it really is 4 and 5 are like of a piece.”

With the endgame for Stranger Things now confirmed, there are already rumors bubbling of potential spin-off shows in the future. One such rumor even suggested that English actress Millie Bobby Brown could reprise her role in a sequel show focused primarily on her character.

For now, though, Matt and Ross Duffer have their eyes firmly on a perfect ending for the current show.

NEXT: Here's How Millie Bobby Brown Landed The Role Of Eleven On 'Stranger Things'