‘Stranger Things’ Actor Thought The Show Would Be A Disaster, And Canceled After Season 1

It’s 2015. You’re David Harbour and you are filming a weird new Netflix series about a magic little girl and her friends. You do not understand that in 2022, this show will be one of the most viewed on the planet, a massive hit. In fact, you think it kind of seems like nonsense. You think it’s not going to make it.

Turns out this is more or less exactly what was running through David Harbour’s mind during the filming of season 1 of Stranger Things, where it can be hard to see the larger picture even if you’re a part of something special in the moment. Speaking to the BBC’s The One Show, Harbour recounted a crisis of faith on set filming season 1:

“I remember when we were shooting the first season. We were down in Atlanta, Netflix had given us a budget of about $20…Halfway through I remember my hair person coming up to me, like about episode four we were shooting, and she was like, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna work.'”

What do you know, hair person? But Harbour felt something similar at the time:

“By the time we finished, we wrapped, I thought we wouldn’t get a second season, we’d be the first Netflix show kind of ever to never get a second season. We thought no one would watch it, it was going to be a disaster.”

At the time, Stranger Things did seem like an extremely, out-there concept that easily could have bombed. The Duffer Bros. have previously spoken about how no one was even attempting to try to capture the kind of childhood wonder-like movie magic of the ‘80s outside of maybe JJ Abrams’ Super 8, and at the time, they were the only ones trying with a project like Stranger Things.

The first season of the show was essentially a variant of ET, with Eleven subbing in for the alien, which did resonate with audiences, and was the reason the show bloomed into the megahit it was today. It’s a little strange to go all the way back to season 1 to see just how much the show has changed, from ET homage to season 4 here, heavily influenced by Nightmare on Elm Street, a wildly different class of ‘80s classic. The spirit may still be the same, but the show has grown up, and certainly isn’t working with a $20 budget any more. Reportedly, Stranger Things now has a budget of $30 million an episode, between cast salaries and VFX.

I think there’s a larger lesson in here somewhere, where Harbour’s doubts about his own work that became one of the most popular shows in history could be applied to a variety of life circumstances where something may seem terrible at the time, but you don’t know where it will go once it’s finished. I will finish this book I’m writing David Harbour, thank you!

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