Stranger Things season 5 is closer than ever as cast and crew celebrate being halfway through filming

Stranger Things season 5 is officially halfway done, so the final installment of the hit Netflix show is even closer to arriving on our screens.

"Week 24. Happy halfway to the best cast and crew ever," showrunner Ross Duffer wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo of the huge team behind the series. In the next slide, Finn Wolfhard, who plays Mike Wheeler in the show, drops a marble into a jar that marks the number of weeks spent filming.

"Alright, Finn, halfway. You're putting the marble in. How does it feel?" Duffer asks from behind the camera. "Exactly the same," Wolfhard jokes. 

As 24 weeks have already passed, that means production on season 5 is set to take 48 weeks in total – almost an entire year. "It takes a long time to write each season and a long time to shoot them," Robin Buckley actor Maya Hawke recently 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. 

Filming was originally meant to kick off last June, but the 2023 WGA writers' strike and the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike meant that production was put on pause until January 2024. 

Stranger Things season 5 doesn't have a release date yet. While we wait for more updates, check out our guide to the other best Netflix shows to fill out your watch list.