After all, the final two-hour series of “Stranger Things” will be released in theaters. The climactic episode, titled “The Rightside Up,” will premiere on Netflix and over 350 movie theaters on December 31st and will run from 5pm PT/8pm ET until January 1, 2026. This appears to be the first time an episode of a Netflix series will be released in theaters.
Netflix said the exact theater details will be announced at a later date.
In a recent Variety cover story about the making of the show’s final season, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer expressed interest in having the feature-length finale premiere in theaters at the same time it hits the streamer on New Year’s Eve.
“People don’t get to experience the amount of time and effort that goes into sound and video, so they watch it at a lower quality,” Matt says. “More than that, it’s important that we experience it with our fans at the same time.”
“That would be great,” Ross said. “Because fans can be there with other fans and experience it as a community. That would be incredible.”
One of Netflix’s guiding principles is to release original content on its streaming platform rather than in theaters, but the company has released feature films theatrically on a case-by-case basis. Greta Gerwig has negotiated with the company to release the film “The Chronicles of Narnia” in IMAX next year. Netflix’s awards nominees this year, including Frankenstein, Jay Kelly and House of Dynamite, will be screened first in a small number of theaters for Oscar nomination screenings, often weeks before they premiere on Netflix. After being a huge hit on the platform in the summer, “KPop Demon Hunters” led the box office for special sing-along theatrical releases. The company announced on October 15 that the movie will be shown over Halloween weekend in theaters including the three major chains: AMC, Regal, and Cinemark.
However, during a cover interview in September, Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria initially dismissed the idea of releasing the final episode of Stranger Things in theaters. “A lot of people, a lot of people, watched Stranger Things on Netflix,” she said. “This work doesn’t suffer from a lack of conversation or community or sharing or fandom. I think by releasing it on Netflix we’re giving the fans what they want.”
After Variety’s cover story was published, fans of the show expressed great interest in the idea of a theatrical release for the final episode on social media. Variety’s Instagram post received 40,000 likes, with fans commenting, “Damn, what a missed opportunity for Netflix to make more money…If it had been held in theaters it would have been a huge event with people dressing up like Barbie dolls,” and “Netflix is wrong. Our industry needs more excitement in theater culture.”
In this case, it appears that the wishes of the people of Upside Down have come true.
