Netflix has ordered a live-action prequel series to its blockbuster sci-fi hit Stranger Things. Titled Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure, the show is set for a 2028 premiere and takes place on April 19, 1955, in Marion, Nevada—decades before the events of the original series and several years before the stage play Stranger Things: The First Shadow.
The announcement arrived on November 6, known as Stranger Things Day, which marks the in-universe date Will Byers disappeared in 1983. Co-created by Matt and Ross Duffer and longtime Stranger Things writer Kate Trefry, the series will introduce an all-new cast of characters while exploring the origins of the franchise’s supernatural mythology. Trefry, who wrote the Tony-winning stage play The First Shadow (from a story developed with the Duffers and Jack Thorne), will serve as showrunner, writer, and executive producer. BAFTA and Golden Globe-winning director Joe Wright (Atonement, Pride & Prejudice, Darkest Hour) will helm the first three episodes and also executive produce. Production is planned for New Mexico.
A short teaser released with the announcement shows a deserted blue bicycle with a portable radio near a restricted area at night, town lights in the distance, and an ominous disturbance rippling across the sky. On-screen text confirms the date and location: “April 19, 1955. Marion, Nevada.” Netflix has used the tagline “Before Hawkins, there was Marion.” The Duffer Brothers described the project as one they have been developing for years. “It’s Stranger Things, but also thrillingly fresh, with a new setting, new heroes and villains, and new… actually, we’re not allowed to say any more. Now, on to casting. In the meantime — watch the skies, nerds!”
Trefry called the opportunity “my insane honor and privilege,” noting that the series aims to recapture “all the horror, wonder and mystery of the flagship, while also telling a wholly new story.” Netflix’s head of scripted series for the U.S. and Canada, Jinny Howe, said the streamer is “honored to partner again with Matt and Ross Duffer and Kate Trefry to give fans a new dimension of this universe to step into.” Shawn Levy and 21 Laps Entertainment are also among the executive producers.
The series is positioned to fill in key backstory elements tied to Henry Creel (later known as Vecna). Previous comments from the Duffers indicated that the spinoff would address lingering threads, including the origin of the otherworldly rock young Henry encounters in the Nevada caves—an artifact first introduced in The First Shadow and later referenced in Stranger Things Season 5. The First Shadow is set in 1959 and spans Hawkins, Indiana, and Nevada locations. Other Worlds takes place a few years earlier in the same general region.
This marks the latest expansion of the Stranger Things universe. The original series, which premiered in 2016 and concluded after five seasons, has generated more than 1.2 billion views across its first four seasons alone. Additional projects already include the animated midquel Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 and the stage play The First Shadow. The Duffers, who are under an overall deal at Paramount, are executive producing through their Upside Down Pictures banner while handing day-to-day showrunning duties to Trefry.
With casting still ahead and a 2028 target release, Other Worlds: A Stranger Things Adventure represents Netflix’s most substantial live-action continuation of the franchise to date—shifting the timeline back three decades, relocating the action to the Nevada desert, and promising new characters and mythology rooted in the same supernatural foundation that turned Hawkins into a global phenomenon.
