Stranger Things' Gaten Matarazzo, who plays the beloved nerd, Dustin Henderson, reveals that he is in full support of a spinoff series for his character and Joe Keery's ex-popular stud, Steve Harrington. The show is going into its fourth season after its mind-blowing premiere in 2016, and it seems that the Duffer brothers (Stranger Things' creators) have no plan on slowing down anytime soon.
The story so far has centered around a group of kids who are trying to uncover the sinister secrets their small suburban town of Hawkins is hiding, IT-by-Stephen-King style. Matarazzo's gang of friends is completed by co-stars Finn Wolfhard, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin, Sadie Sink and, of course, the show's shining star, Millie Bobby Brown. Each subsequent season has featured the ongoing metamorphosis of the monster we first met in season one, as it continues to evolve and turn into a threat not even Brown's Eleven can suppress. The rest of the cast is made up of the iconic Winona Ryder and David Harbour, teen journalists portrayed by Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton, and a bunch of new faces who will be joining the madness of Hawkins.
ET Online spoke to Matarazzo about the upcoming season along with the widely rumored spinoff concept for Dustin and his newfound best bud, Steve. Dustin and Steve began to build their unlikely friendship in season two, which was reportedly accidental, as the writers saw two characters facing the same dilemmas and so lumped them together simply for the direction of the plot. This iconic duo has since become a fan-favorite relationship. While Matarazzo didn't confirm any spinoff plans already in the works, he did express his support for the idea. Matarazzo stated:
I think a Dustin-Steve spinoff would be good if it were in, like, a weird niche format. Like, they didn't do a full show of it... like a WandaVision type thing or like a web series type thing where on YouTube, there's weekly episodes of little hijinks they get into, like every now and again, like a skit show. That'd be great. You kind of break that format.
Matarazzo certainly isn't a stranger to breaking the regular episode-by-episode TV format, as his hidden camera series Prank Encounters is going into its second season. He indicates his concern for fleshing out a full show purely based off of Steve and Dustin's shenanigans, or rather, the difficulty he reckons they'll encounter when trying to flesh the story out. Matarazzo explained:
I don't know if a Dustin and Steve full-series spinoff is sustainable. What are they going to do for a whole season, just them?
So while Matarazzo is a fan of the spinoff concept, it looks like the production, if any, will be smaller scale than fans are perhaps hoping for. Although the Dustin-Steve spinoff would not be a total risk, as there have been various successful character spinoff shows in the past. The most popular of which include Mork and Mindy, which starred Robin Williams and Pam Dawber, Frasier which centered around titular character, Frasier Crane from Cheers, The Simpsons whose characters first appeared on The Tracy Ullman Show, and the list goes on! Only time will tell to see if the Duffer brothers do, in fact, take a leap of faith with Stranger Things' Dustin and Steve and their iconic bromance; whatever they get up to, it's sure to be a hoot.
Source: ET Online