David Harbour says Stranger Things season 4 was originally targeting an early 2021 release date. Like every other in-production movie or TV show, Netflix's Stranger Things halted filming this month in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Shooting on season 4 had only just begun in the middle of February, which Netflix announced by releasing a teaser trailer confirming Harbour's Sheriff Jim Hopper had, in fact, survived the events of the season 3 finale (an many fans already suspected). As such, there's still a whole lot of production to be done on Stranger Things 4, once filming starts up again.
For now, it's anyone's guess when that might be, given the highly fluid nature of the COVID-19 pandemic. Prior to the delay, some fans had been speculating Netflix would release Stranger Things season 4 near the end of 2020, either around Thanksgiving or the winter holidays (in turn, paying off a tease in the show's season 3 finale). Obviously, that's no longer a possibility, but according to Harbour, it was never the plan to begin with.
As part of a Q&A with his followers on his Instagram account, Harbour fielded questions about a number of his upcoming projects, including Marvel's Black Widow and Stranger Things season 4. After confirming production is shut down until further notice, the actor reveal this new season "was supposed to come out early next year, I think, although I don’t have authority on this." He went on to say the release date will "probably be pushed back", but he doesn't know how far, given his uncertainty about when production might resume.
Truth be told, it was always more likely Stranger Things season 4 was going to begin streaming next year, even before the coronavirus outbreak took a turn for the worse. After a relatively quick turnaround between the first and second seasons, Stranger Things 3 didn't arrive on Netflix until 21 months after the previous season. Had season 4 moved forward in a similar fashion, it would've started streaming in April 2021. The show will only continue to grow in scale and scope in season 4, taking viewers as far away from Hawkins, Indiana as the prison camp in Russia where Hopper is being kept when the story begins. In other words, it would've been unrealistic to expect season 4 to take much less time (if not longer) to finish up than season 3 did.
In light of the production delay, fans are almost certainly looking at Stranger Things season 4 arriving later than previously hoped. It could well end up arriving a whole two years after season 3 premiered in the summer of 2021, though even that depends on production starting up again in the next few months (which, again, isn't guaranteed). Not to mention, Netflix will presumably have to rearrange their release calendar for the next year and half at some point, and they might elect to move season 4 back to fill in an unexpected gap in their scheduling. As with everything else affected by the coronavirus, we'll have to just wait and how the situation evolves from this point forward.
More on Stranger Things season 4 as the story develops.
Source: David Harbour/Instagram