In a recent interview, executive producer and director Shawn Levy and star David Harbour talked to Deadline about the third season:
“It’s definitely going to get darker still, places that I think audiences are going to really love. It’s got so much heart and humor.
If you’re a real fan of “Stranger Things” and you really want to know, I would go look at the great films that were released in ’85, of which there were many, and just go down that list and think of the possibilities that we could be going with. I think it is a specific season to 1985, and so you’ll see references to that.
We’re experimenting a lot this season, and we’re taking risks, and I hope that they pay off but they are risks. We’re going into territories we’ve never been to before, and it’s exciting.
We had a little softer season with Jim in Season 2, where he was really working off these fatherly instincts and understanding a responsibility that was larger than himself, and I think one of the things that we missed from season 1 was this guy who goes into government facilities and punches people in the face. He’s not a doofus, but he’s a bit of a Columbo character.
There was a sort of swashbuckling guy that we put on the back burner. So I think we’ll see a little more of the swashbuckling Hopper you may have liked from season 1. It’s almost like season one plus two, equals three. It’s like you have this third character now, who goes back to the swashbuckling guy of season 1, but also has behind him this adopted daughter who he loves very much, so it’s really cool.”
