It’s official: the Stranger Things series finale runtime clocks in at two hours and change. Two hours and five minutes, to be exact.
Series creators Matt and Ross Duffer signaled “about two hours” during early press for the fifth and final season of the series, but Netflix confirmed the duration in announcing the 500-plus locations across North America for the episode’s theatrical release.
Season 5, episode 8, “The Rightside Up” — directed by the Duffers — will get a simultaneous release on Netflix and in select theaters starting New Year’s Eve at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT. The streamer launched popup website ST5Finale.com as an easy way for fans to look up the specific theatrical locations across the U.S. and Canada.
Billed as Stranger Things: The Finale, the theatrical run is but a blip, lasting from the night of Dec. 31 to Jan. 1. So seats and screenings are limited.
Netflix
Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven on ‘Stranger Things 5’
“We’re beyond excited that fans will have the chance to experience the final episode of Stranger Things in theaters — it’s something we’ve dreamed about for years, and we’re so grateful to Ted, Bela, and everyone at Netflix for making it happen,” the Duffer Brothers said in a statement, referring to Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos and chief content officer Bela Bajaria. “Getting to see it on the big screen, with incredible sound, picture, and a room full of fans, feels like the perfect — dare we say bitchin’ — way to celebrate the end of this adventure.”
Prior to the launch of Stranger Things 5, Volume 1, consisting of the season’s first four episodes, all of the previous seasons made their way to the Top 10 at the same time — a first for any series on the platform.
Netflix hasn’t released streaming stats for Volume 1, although Samba TV’s data reports 3.2 million U.S. households watched the first episode of season 5 over the Thanksgiving holiday break. The service also reports that 39 percent of all houses that watched any episode of Stranger Things 5 binged all of the available episodes within the first 48 hours (nearly two out of every five viewers).
Volume 2 will now bring episodes 5-7 to Netflix beginning Christmas Day at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT.
Netflix
Will (Noah Schnapp) and Vecna (Jamie Campbell Bower) on ‘Stranger Things 5’
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Star Noah Schnapp (Will Byers) previously told Entertainment Weekly that Netflix won’t show any of the cast the series finale in advance. Netflix has not confirmed as much to EW. Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven) is hoping for a “chicken jockey” moment for the theatrical screenings.
Despite what was said in the press, the Duffers confirmed plans for a theatrical rollout for the finale has been in the works for months.
Matt Duffer explained how “everyone had to play super coy for a long time because they were still ironing out all the details with the theaters.”
He added, “I know we’ve talked about the theatrical experience, but Ross and I never asked Netflix to do it because it just never really made sense to me. It only is cool if everyone’s experiencing it for the first time together. So when Netflix came to us with the idea of having the finale premiere on its own, then that was when we suggested the idea of doing it theatrically because it would really function like a movie.”
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