Stranger Things: David Harbour felt show wouldn't have S2; 'we thought it'll be disaster'

Though popular sci-fi horror series Stranger Things recently completed its fourth season, actor David Harbour, who plays the role of Jim Hopper, once believed the show would not even get a second season. The first season of Stranger Things got released on the OTT giant Netflix in 2016 and gripped viewers in such a way that it became the platform's most popular English-language original series ever.

The latest release, the second volume of the fourth season, fetched more than one billion views in less than a month. The newest season was mounted on a grand scale as the show's fourth and the deadliest season became a massive hit with critics and audiences alike. The fourth season broke the mould of the previous seasons by being more expansive, more complex, and with a run-time to match.

'I was like- it won't work': David Harbour on Stranger Things

Now, in a recent interview with BBC's The One Show (via Insider), David Harbour confessed that he thought Stranger Things would get cancelled after its first season. The 47-year-old thought that the show's prospects weren't great and other members of the crew thought so too. He stated,

"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.'"

Harbour aka Jim Hopper added, "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." Harbour said that he was concerned about whether the series would garner enough success so as to warrant a second season, but he didn't have anything to worry about as Stranger Things dominated the global headlines upon its arrival.

The fourth season of the 80s sci-fi series saw many events including Eleven's quest to find her powers, Max's subconscious being stuck in the Upside Down, Vecna's terror in the Hawkins, Hopper's return and more. The upcoming fifth season will be the final one, as confirmed by the creators, Matt and Ross Duffer. Duffer Brothers wrote, "Seven years ago, we planned out the complete story arc for Stranger Things".