Stranger Things 5 may be worth the wait after all, after a recent report suggested its historic runtime and budget. The upcoming fifth and final season of the hit Netflix series is set to conclude later this year. Season 5 ends the longest gap between seasons for the streaming hit after more than three years since the last batch of episodes.
According to a pair of new reports, Stranger Things' fifth season will break both a runtime and budget record for the series, being both the longest and most expensive of the show so far.
The first comes from Puck News' Matthew Belloni, who wrote that every episode of Stranger Things 5 will be over an hour, with each episode ranging between 90 and 120 minutes. This aligns with previous comments that the show's final season will feel like eight full-length movies rather than episodes of TV.
For comparison, only two episodes from Season 4 were over 90 minutes. So, on average, Season 5 will be the highest average runtime in show history.
The series will be similarly hefty on the budget side of things as well. A report from a Reddit user, Kameronpipnerd, suggested Season 5 is carrying with it a reported budget of $480 million (or roughly $50-60 million per episode).
This would likely make the series the second most expensive TV show in history, potentially trailing only Rings of Power Season 1, which cost Amazon Prime Video over $1 billion in total.
Stranger Things Season 5 kicks off on Netflix on November 26 with its first batch of new episodes. It will return on December 25 and December 31 to round out the series. Season 5 is set to begin, bringing the show's epic 80s-tinged sci-fi tale of a small Indiana town to a close, as it is wrapped up in a threat from another world.
It will once again star the likes of Millie Bobby Brown, David Harbour, Finn Wolfhard, and Winona Ryder, among others.
Stranger Things 5's Epic Story Teased
These reported details about Stranger Things 5 are likely to raise the eyebrows of fans around the world as the show approaches its upcoming return.
Previously, it had been teased that the show's final few episodes would feel more cinematic than ever. In October 2024, star Finn Wolfhard described the series as "basically...eight films," hinting at the scale of the grand finale:
"I’ll meet fans of the show and they’re like, 'Oh, why can’t the show come out soon?' I’m like, 'I know. I want it to come out soon, but the way we’re filming it is so crazy. We’re basically making eight movies.'"
Not to say that audiences did not believe Wolfhard at the time, but it is one thing for a cast or crew member to hype up an upcoming project, and it is another for it actually to happen.
Well, it looks as though Wolfhard was right, and these mega-packed episodes are on the way, resulting in a bigger season than ever before.
And it would make sense for the series to leave it all on the floor in this way for its upcoming fifth season. Stranger Things has been one of Netflix's biggest hits ever, so it deserves to go out with a super-sized supernatural bang.
