TVLine Items: Stranger Things to Start Filming Final Season, Assistant to the Villain TV Series and More
Here’s some news that will make Stranger Things fans happy: a return to Hawkins is imminent.
Production on the Netflix juggernaut’s fifth and final season will begin in early January, Deadline reports. Filming for Season 5, which is expected to arrive in 2025, had been delayed by more than seven months due to the Hollywood writers and actors strikes.
This comes after Season 4, which was released in two parts in 2022, experienced a major delay due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the challenges production faced during the shutdown.
With a significant gap between seasons, executive producer and director Shawn Levy previously noted that the show will do what they can to maintain the kids’ youthful looks.
“We’ve already watched the cast of our show grow up in the public eye, and between 12 and 22, every human being changes profoundly,” he told Variety. “That being said, our hair and makeup and wardrobe department are pretty exceptional, using costumes and wigs and makeup. The ’80s are also our friends in returning these young adult actors to their iconic Hawkins characters. So, we’re going to use all the all the tools available to us. And I know our cast is as eager to get back to work as the rest of us.”
Ready for some more recent newsy nuggets? Well…
*Legendary Television has purchased the rights to adapt the fantasy romance novel Assistant to the Villain from author Hannah Nicole Maehrer into a TV series, according to Deadline.
The story centers on Evie Sage who, “with ailing family to support, takes a job as an assistant to the most infamous villain in the land,” per the official synopsis. “When Evie suspects that something nefarious is afoot amongst their villainous ranks, she must figure out who is sabotaging her boss before this rat wipes out their empire and puts her out of a job.”
*Reina Hardesty (Brockmire, The Flash) will star opposite Daniel Dae Kim in Prime Video’s forthcoming spy series Butterfly, Variety reports. She is set to portray Rebecca, a deadly, sociopathic young agent assigned to kill David Jung (played by Kim).
*Netflix has released a trailer for the unscripted series The Trust: A Game of Greed, which premieres Wednesday, Jan. 10:
