Stranger Things Season 5's Rumored Budget Is One Of The Highest Ever For A TV Series

It's been more than three years since "Stranger Things" season 4 hit Netflix and more than six years since season 3 arrived. The highly anticipated "Stranger Things" season 5 will be released in three parts later this year, with the first four episodes arriving November 26, the next three on December 25, and the final episode on December 31. With nine episodes in season 4, that will ultimately come out to just 17 episodes across six and a half years, which is fewer than three episodes per year on average.

It's the sort of mind-boggling timetable, coupled with the rare cultural zeitgeist around the show, that builds impossible expectations. So, it's perhaps no surprise that a new report from Kim Masters of Puck claims the final season's budget is somewhere between $50-60 million per episode.

Even at the height of the streaming wars, when various companies were all throwing money at creatives to build out their exclusive libraries as quickly and loudly as possible, that number would turn heads. If true, it would put "Stranger Things" season 5 at the top of the mountain for the most expensive TV seasons ever, right alongside "The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power" and its reported $58 million per episode price tag for its first season.

Mind you, "Stranger Things" season 4 is already up there with a reported budget of $30 million per episode. However, assuming they're accurate, the numbers reported by Puck would blow that figure out of the water for the grand finale.

Only a handful of TV seasons have ever crossed $25 million per episode, let alone $50 million. And most of those were part of either the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the "Star Wars" franchise during the spending blitz of the early Disney+ years. Now, in fairness, "Stranger Things" entered a slightly different category in season 4 when its episode lengths started ballooning well past the 45-60 minutes you typically see for scripted shows. Indeed, the shortest episode in that season was still 63 minutes, while the finale was a gargantuan two and a half hours.

According to the same report from Puck, those types of movie-length chapters will be the norm once again in season 5, with episodes coming in anywhere from 90 minutes to two hours. Over the course of the season's long production cycle, both members of the show's cast and "Stranger Things" creators Matt and Ross Duffer themselves have compared the individual episodes to movies, so the massive budgets currently being reported are slightly easier to swallow when you know that all that money is being stretched over a lot more screen time.

Even so, that's a huge budget, and it puts even more pressure on one of the most anticipated series finales since "Game of Thrones" ended in 2019.

Long production delays, growing cinematic ambitions, and now heightened production costs have all put a lot of pressure on "Stranger Things" season 5 to deliver. Though Netflix has had plenty of hits since the show first premiered back in 2016 (from "Squid Game" and "Arcane" to "Bridgerton" and "Cobra Kai"), the retro sci-fi horror series has been the streamer's de facto mascot brand for nearly a decade. It's the closest thing Netflix has to "Game of Thrones" or "Star Wars" — an original IP created in-house that sparked its own wave of cultural influence and gave the company a level of legitimacy as a purveyor of original media.

That legacy will come to a head with the impending series finale, and while Netflix might not be in the habit of dishing out giant budgets these days, it makes sense that it would still go as big as possible in sending off the company darling. The Duffer brothers recently signed a four-year deal with Paramount, taking them away from Netflix after a long-term partnership. Regardless, Netflix has plans to continue expanding the "Stranger Things" brand, with several spin-off projects in the works. And we all know just how devastating a bad last season can be to a show's legacy.

"Stranger Things" season 5 premieres on Netflix on November 26, 2025, with the final episodes debuting a month later on December 25 and December 31.