Other Worlds: Netflix Announces Stranger Things Prequel Set in 1955 Nevada for 2028, with Joe Wright Directing

On Stranger Things Day, Friday November 6, Netflix announced Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure, a live-action prequel set in the 1950s and premiering in 2028 — a new town, a new decade and a new cast for its flagship franchise. The 58-second teaser says almost nothing and sets the mood: an abandoned bicycle with a radio crackling out “Sh-Boom” beside a restricted area at night, the sky splitting open above a distant town, and a title card reading “April 19, 1955, Marion, Nevada” — “Before Hawkins, there was Marion.”

Matt and Ross Duffer co-created the series with Kate Trefry, the longtime Stranger Things writer who wrote the stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow. Trefry is showrunner, co-creator and writer; Joe Wright, director of Atonement and Darkest Hour, will direct the first three episodes and executive produce. The Duffers and Shawn Levy executive produce through Upside Down Pictures and 21 Laps Entertainment. Production will take place in New Mexico; Netflix has announced no cast, episode count, budget or exact date within 2028 — only an all-new ensemble, characters, themes and mythology.

The franchise math explains it. The main series ended with its fifth-season finale on December 31, 2025; Netflix says the first four seasons have drawn more than 1.2 billion views since 2016, and the final season drew 105.7 million views, ninth on its all-time English-language TV list. The universe reaches further: the animated Tales From ’85 has two seasons streaming, The First Shadow runs in London and on Broadway into early January 2027, and Netflix House sites in Philadelphia and Dallas host attractions. Variety and Deadline recall Duffer hints that the prequel could touch on Henry Creel’s backstory, though Netflix has not confirmed that.

Here is the Filmverse take: a franchise being kept alive after its authors walked away. The Duffers moved to Paramount in April 2026 and Levy is heading to Disney television — yet Netflix owns the franchise, and it is extending it with a long-serving writer and a prestige film director rather than a caretaker. Setting it in 1955 Nevada, decades before Hawkins and even before the 1959 stage play, deliberately breaks from the ’80s nostalgia, the kids and the bikes that made the original a phenomenon. That is the gamble: a prequel that only repeated the original would be a tribute act, while a genuinely new story risks losing the old audience. The test will be the casting, which has not yet begun. Our most recent global post, on Fincher’s Cliff Booth: https://filmverse.in/cliff-booth-trailer-2-brad-pitt-david-fincher-quentin-tarantino-imax-november-25/

Watch the official announcement teaser below:

Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure premieres on Netflix in 2028.

Source: Netflix Tudum, Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter.