Stranger Things star says it's taking a "long time" to shoot the final season because it's "basically eight movies"

Stranger Things star Maya Hawke has teased the epic scale of the upcoming final season, saying that the next batch of episodes feels more like multiple movies.

"It takes a long time to write each season and a long time to shoot them," Hawke, who plays Robin Buckley in the hit Netflix series, told the Podcrushed podcast. "We're making basically eight movies."

Stranger Things season 4 made headlines for the length of its episodes, with each episode lasting at least an hour and the finale clocking in at a mighty two hours and 19 minutes, so it seems safe to say that season 5 will follow suit. 

We don't know all that much about Stranger Things season 5 just yet, including episode runtimes – and it's not just us who are in the dark when it comes to spoilers. "I nudge her for them and she won't give them up!" Hawke's dad, actor Ethan Hawke, joked in an interview with PEOPLE. "She says, 'You've got a big mouth.' So nope, not even to dear old dad."

Hawke's latest project is Inside Out 2, in which she voices new character Anxiety. The Pixar sequel has quickly become the biggest movie of the year, surpassing Dune 2 and becoming the first movie of 2024 to make $1 billion at the box office.

Stranger Things season 5 doesn't have a release date yet. While we wait for the final installment to arrive, check out our guide to the rest of the best Netflix shows to add to your watchlist.