Duffer Brothers set up production company Upside Down Pictures; announce Stranger Things spin-off & stage play, Death Note live-action series & series adaptation of Stephen King’s The Talisman

July 7, 2022 - 5:05 PM IST

The Duffer Brothers on Wednesday announced their new production company, Upside Down Pictures, for film and television projects as part of their overall deal with Netflix. Hilary Leavitt has been hired to run the company.

Duffer Brothers set up production company Upside Down Pictures; announce Stranger Things spin-off & stage play, Death Note live-action series & series adaptation of Stephen King’s The Talisman

According to The Duffer Brothers, Upside Down Pictures will “aim to create the kind of stories that inspired the Duffers growing up - stories that take place at that beautiful crossroads where the ordinary meets the extraordinary, where big spectacle co-exists with intimate character work, where heart wins out over cynicism.”

The Duffer Brothers and Netflix also announced their growing slate of projects in active development that are as follows:

- An all-new live-action television adaptation of the renowned Japanese manga and anime series Death Note.

- An original series from creators Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews

- A series adaptation of Stephen King and Peter Straub’s The Talisman alongside Steven Spielberg’s Amblin Entertainment and Paramount Television to be created by Curtis Gwinn.

- A new stage play set within the world and mythology of Stranger Things, produced by prolific and multi award-winning producers Sonia Friedman, Stephen Daldry and Netflix. Daldry will also direct. 21 Laps serves as Associate Producer.

- A live-action Stranger Things spin-off series based on an original idea by The Duffer Brothers, with Upside Down and 21 Laps producing.

The Duffer Brothers most recently released the fourth season of their hit Netflix series Stranger Things, which they wrote, directed, and executive produced. Stranger Things 4 is currently at #1 on Netflix’s (all time) Most Popular English TV list with an astounding 1.15 billion hours viewed in its first 28 days – only the second series to cross the billion-hour viewing mark, with the final tally expected to be higher as Vol. 2 reaches the 28-day viewing period.

The third season released in 2019 still holds at #3. Stranger Things 4 also scored the biggest premiere weekend ever for an English-language TV show on Netflix with 286.79 million hours viewed. It hit #1 on the Top 10 lists in 91 countries, a first for an English TV series. The series became the most viewed season of English-language TV in a single week on Netflix with a staggering 335.01M hours viewed.

It entered the Most Popular list at #3 with 621.80M hours viewed just 10 days after its premiere, setting yet another record as the fastest English-language series to break into the Most Popular list.

Also Read: Duffer Brothers confirm Stranger Things 4 final season to have shorter episodes except for series finale