MOVIE NEWS – Season 4 of Netflix’s hugely popular series Stranger Things will be the most expensive yet, with each episode costing $30 million…

Stranger Things is one of Netflix’s most popular original series, with the long-awaited fourth season debuting next month. The series has always had a significant budget, but the upcoming season will be the most expensive yet. According to The Wall Street Journal, Netflix spent $30 million per episode on Season 4! That’s three times more than previous seasons of Stranger Things, which cost around $8-10 million per episode.

At this price tag, the series is even more expensive than Disney’s Star Wars and Marvel TV series, making Stranger Things the 2nd most costly streaming series after Amazon’s The Lord of The Rings: The Rings of Power.

Of course, they’ve managed to spend this astronomical amount well, judging by the trailers. With a new villain, new locations, and a much darker, more horror-ish tone, Stranger Things season 4 looks to be a completely different show than we’ve seen before. Hopefully, it will be worth Netflix’s huge investment.

This news comes amid a colossal stock market plunge for Netflix, as the company’s shares fell 35% a few days ago, wiping more than $50 billion off the company’s market value. The likely reason for the plunge is Netflix’s recently released quarterly report, which revealed some surprising revelations, including a net loss of 200,000 subscribers. It estimates that an additional 2 million will leave the streamer in the next quarter.

Netflix plans to take drastic measures to increase revenue and subscriber numbers, including cutting back on password sharing and introducing a cheaper subscription package supported by advertising.

The WSJ also reports that Netflix is rethinking its financial strategy to cut the cost of new shows, order fewer episodes where possible and have more say in the content department rather than giving creators a free hand as in the past. Hopefully, this will reduce the cancellation of fan-favourite shows that Netflix has so often done in recent days. In addition, Netflix has always been quite generous with budgets, as can be seen from films such as The Irishman and Extremely Dangerous Criminals, but it seems that the company is now seriously concerned about falling profits.

As for Stranger Things, it remains one of Netflix’s most valuable IPs, and the streaming service is building heavily on the series. Season 4 is set to premiere in two parts, with the first five episodes coming to Netflix on May 27, 2022, and the following four episodes on July 1.

Source: The Wall Street Journal