Stranger Things Doc Director Addresses ChatGPT Claim Against Duffers

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Inspiration can come from anywhere.

Despite rumors sparked by a laptop shown in the documentary One Last Adventure: The Making of Stranger Things 5, director Martina Radwan doesn’t believe the Duffer brothers—Matt and Ross—used ChatGPT to help write the series finale.

Martina pointed out that while it hasn’t been officially confirmed if it was ChatGPT, it seems like many people are using similar tools for quick research, as she told The Hollywood Reporter.

She was confused, asking, “How could anyone write a story with so many characters – nineteen of them – using ChatGPT? It just doesn’t make sense to me.”

Martina, reiterating that the exact wording of the internet tab is unknown, pointed out that even if it was ChatGPT, the AI tool is now widely used.

It’s similar to having your phone right next to your computer when you’re trying to write something,” the filmmaker explained. “We simply use these tools alongside other tasks. What’s really upsetting is that people enjoy the show, but then immediately start criticizing it.”

Although the ending of Stranger Things sparked a lot of debate – with some viewers loving the cheerful conclusion and others wanting more – Martina remains supportive of the creative choices made by the show’s writers, the Duffer brothers.

When asked if she saw generative AI being used, she firmly stated, “Absolutely not. What I saw was creative collaboration and genuine conversation.”

People often imagine a ‘writers room’ as just a place where people write, but that’s not really how it works. It’s more about brainstorming and developing the story together. You explore different ideas and then bring those back to the actual script.

The documentary did show, though, that the final script wasn’t fully completed when filming started.

According to the document, Matt said they started filming the final episode before the script was completely finished. He admitted it was nerve-wracking, as they really wanted to nail the ending – it was the most crucial script of the entire season.

And the fact that the series was such a big production—literally and figuratively—didn’t help.

Matt remembered a really tough time working on episode eight. They were getting a lot of feedback – and demands for changes – from both the production team and Netflix. He said it was the most challenging writing situation they’d ever faced, not just because the script needed to be excellent, but because of the sheer volume of conflicting opinions and requests coming at them all at once.

Matt and Ross not only want to satisfy their superiors, but they also feel strongly that every character deserves a proper send-off.

Matt explained in a recent interview with The Times that making sure each character’s story concluded in a satisfying way was his priority. He felt this was even more important than simply giving fans the ending they wanted.

The brothers made a real effort to eliminate distractions while they wrote. The 41-year-old explained that he avoids going online as much as possible, admitting he doesn’t even know what readers are hoping for.

As a longtime fan, I’ve always admired how the Duffer brothers built Stranger Things over the years. But what they’ve consistently emphasized is how lucky they were to find the original group of young actors for season one. They’ve often spoken about how much those kids had each other’s backs, and how important that bond was to the show’s success.

Ross shared that everyone involved did a fantastic job. He acknowledged that it’s tough for young actors to grow up in the public eye, but emphasized that they had supportive families and each other to help them navigate the experience.

To learn more about how Stranger Things became so popular, keep reading.

Before creating Stranger Things, brothers Matt and Ross Duffer worked on M. Night Shyamalan’s television series Wayward Pines. Their original idea for the show was actually called Montauk.

Matt explained to The Daily Beast in 2016 that it’s incredibly difficult to convince people to accept a different title once you’ve become fixated on one. He said that when they first suggested Stranger Things, it was a challenge to get others on board.

The creators of the show originally wanted to film on Long Island, but it ended up being too difficult to do so.

Matt told The Hollywood Reporter they chose Montauk because of its beautiful seaside location, its connection to the fictional town in Jaws – which he considers his favorite film – and the overall cool factor. However, they quickly realized filming on Long Island during the winter would be both unpleasant and too costly.

Atlanta ultimately became the home base for production.

Before Netflix decided to air the show, around 20 other networks turned it down, as reported by Vulture. Executives at those networks didn’t think viewers would connect with a series led by four kids.

4. To play Eleven, then 12-year-old Millie Bobby Brown had to say goodbye to her hair.

In 2018, at PaleyFest, the actress described shaving her head as the most liberating experience of her life. She explained that letting go of her hair felt like revealing her true self, as she could no longer hide behind it. Looking in the mirror, she felt a responsibility to inspire others, realizing that beauty doesn’t depend on having hair.

She found inspiration for her role in both Charlize Theron’s performance in Mad Max: Fury Road and old yearbook pictures of her fellow actress, Winona Ryder.

She mentioned Winona Ryder’s classic pixie cut and said it inspired her to try the style herself.

The British actress shared a surprising source she used to nail her American accent: Miley Cyrus’s Hannah Montana. She told Jimmy Fallon on The Tonight Show that the show—and everything about it—was fantastic and really helped her perfect the accent.

The Duffer brothers used scenes from the movie Stand By Me when auditioning young actors to find the four main child stars for their show.

The brothers had a specific vision for the character of Mike. However, that changed after Finn Wolfhard’s audition.

Matt explained to The Daily Beast in 2016 that Mike initially resembled the character Mikey from The Goonies – a bit of a dreamer. However, Finn Wolfhard brought a nervous, restless energy to the audition, which the writers loved and ultimately shaped the character to fit his personality.

Gaten Matarazzo, who played Dustin, also had a big impact on the show’s development. According to Matt, they initially envisioned Dustin as a typical nerd, but after meeting Gaten, they rewrote the character to better suit his talents and personality.

After the show featured Eleven’s love for Eggo waffles, Kellogg’s experienced a notable boost in sales. They reported a 14% increase in consumption towards the end of 2017, coinciding with the release of season two. October of that year also saw a record number of social media mentions for the product.

Oh my gosh, you will NOT believe what David Harbour did! Back in 2018, this fan tweeted him, basically asking if he’d take her senior pictures with her, and he actually responded! She asked how many retweets it would take, and he said 25,000 – but get this – he wanted to wear the school sweatshirt and hold a trombone! And he totally followed through! He actually did it! It was the most amazing thing, and it totally went viral. I still can’t get over how sweet and hilarious he is!

He jokingly predicted on Instagram that he’d be the one to photobomb someone’s high school senior pictures, even 24 years in the future.

Later that year, Harbour playfully offered to marry a fan if she got 125,000 retweets and promised him the first piece of wedding cake. He quickly got certified to perform marriages and ended up officiating the ceremony dressed as his character, Chief Hopper.

Fans often speculated that Eleven might be Hopper’s biological daughter, but he ultimately became a father figure to her. A touching detail in the season two finale revealed Eleven wearing a blue braided bracelet – a special memento made from a ribbon belonging to Hopper’s deceased daughter – to her school dance.

Millie Bobby Brown, who plays Eleven, said her first-ever kiss was with Finn Wolfhard (Mike) during season one of the show. She described it as a really unusual experience, explaining that having a huge crew watching made it feel overwhelming.

She shared what her co-star secretly told her right before they had to kiss for a second time on the show.

She recalled that he told her he was about to kiss her, describing how he said, ‘I’m coming in,’ but did so in a strange, almost puppet-like way. ‘It was so bizarre,’ she said on The Tonight Show in 2017.

Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton, who star as a couple on the show, started dating in 2016 and have generally kept their romance out of the public eye.

You know, privacy is really important to me. I cherish my relationships with family and friends and prefer to keep those parts of my life private. But honestly, working with someone you also go home with is a unique experience – it’s always a lot of fun!

Surprisingly, Joe Keery’s character, Steve Harrington, wasn’t originally meant to survive the first season of the show.

According to Ross, they quickly grew fond of Joe Keery, who played Steve Harrington, while filming the first season. This led them to create a storyline where Steve teams up with Jonathan and Nancy to help resolve the central conflict. Initially, Steve was intended to be a stereotypical, unpleasant athlete, but Keery brought much more depth to the character.

18. Also slated to perish was Eleven. Yes, really. 

In the book Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down, Ross Duffer explained that the original plan was for Eleven to sacrifice herself to save everyone. However, when they realized the show might continue beyond one season, they had to change that storyline. They realized the show wouldn’t work without Eleven, and Millie Bobby Brown was such a valuable part of the series. Ultimately, they decided Eleven needed to survive if Stranger Things continued.

The seventh episode of the second season, called “The Lost Sister,” nearly didn’t air. The Duffer brothers told Vulture they worried the episode—which focuses on Eleven’s search for another experimented-on child—would disrupt the story’s flow.

Matt explained that as they started writing the episode, they questioned whether it was even necessary. They seriously considered cutting it entirely, but the planned ending involving Eleven didn’t work without it. It just didn’t feel right. Ultimately, they decided the episode was essential.

20. Eleven’s sibling was written to be a boy, with the episode originally titled “The Lost Brother.” 

Once the audition was open to all young actors, Linnea Berthelsen was chosen for the role. The episode then showed Eleven meeting her “sister,” Kali. According to Matt, Linnea and Millie (who plays Eleven) had a strong connection, and Millie specifically asked to work with Linnea.

Nicola Coughlan, the actress known for her role in Bridgerton, originally tried out for the part of Robin. However, she later landed the role of Penelope Featherington. Maya Hawke ended up getting the role of Robin, and Nicola has said Hawke was much more suited for it than she would have been.

She explained that actors can learn a lot by looking at roles they didn’t land. It helps them realize it’s not a rejection of their talent, but simply that some parts are a better fit for others. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and not every role will be right for every actor.

Before becoming known for her role as Sarah on the Netflix series Outer Banks, Madelyn Cline played the character Tina, a popular and somewhat unkind student, in the second season of the show.

To land the role of Billy, the rebellious older stepbrother of Max (played by Sadie Sink), Australian actor Dacre Montgomery created a memorable audition tape. He told GQ he aimed to impress the Duffer brothers with something bold and a little edgy.

Dacre took a big risk by filming himself dancing in a G-string to 80s hits like “Come on Eileen” and “Hungry Like the Wolf.” He worried it could end his career, but he hoped someone would recognize his talent and give him an opportunity. Luckily, the gamble worked out for him.

As the show entered its third season, Deadline reported significant pay raises for the cast. The younger actors saw their per-episode salaries jump from around $30,000 to over $200,000, and potentially as high as $250,000. Winona Ryder and David Harbour were each earning approximately $300,000 to $350,000 per episode, while Natalia Dyer and Charlie Heaton were making between $100,000 and $150,000.

Priah Ferguson was originally only scheduled to be in one episode of season two as Erica, Lucas’s feisty younger sister. However, the Duffer brothers loved her performance so much they kept adding her to more scenes. As a result, she became a regular cast member in the next season.

Oh my gosh, it was SO hard for the costume people! Because the younger actors were literally growing up while they were filming, keeping their clothes consistent from scene to scene was a total nightmare! They had to constantly adjust and remake things, it was amazing they pulled it off!

It was a real challenge keeping up with how fast the young actors were growing,” costume designer Kim Wilcox explained to TopMob News. “One child, in particular, outgrew his shoes almost every three weeks, gaining half a size at a time! To solve this, we sourced shoes from brands that offered the same style in many different sizes. That way, we could buy several pairs and always have a replacement when someone had a growth spurt.

The Duffer brothers drew inspiration from films like The Goonies, E.T., and Stand By Me, but they were careful not to make the references too obvious.

When we initially presented the project to Netflix, we created a lengthy, two-and-a-half-minute trailer. It combined clips and ideas from around 20 to 30 films to give a sense of the Stranger Things story, but those were just concepts we had in mind, explained Matt in an interview with The Daily Beast. Those films were hugely influential to us growing up and deeply shaped our creative vision. However, once we started writing individual episodes, we rarely discussed other movies. Our focus shifted to simply telling the story and letting the characters drive the plot. Otherwise, it would have felt disjointed and confusing.

The team initially aimed for a retro look by minimizing special effects, but they soon discovered it was more challenging than they anticipated.

Okay, so get this – they tried to do everything with practical effects, which is what I initially loved about the idea! But honestly, it’s SO much harder than it looks. They really started to appreciate the teams behind classics like The Thing and Alien because those guys were serious pros. Apparently, writing the script was the easy part – actually building everything took forever! They were pumping out pages as fast as they could, but there just wasn’t enough time to prep all the practical stuff. They’d come up with these amazing ideas for old-school effects, but then realize on set… there was simply no way to actually do them, not with the schedule they had. It’s heartbreaking, really, but I totally get it.

The creators, the Duffer brothers, originally planned for ‘Stranger Things’ to last five seasons. According to Netflix executive Matthew Thunell, many of their ideas from 2015 are now coming to fruition as the series concludes. Variety magazine reported that each episode of the fourth season cost around $30 million to produce.

Although the creators of Stranger Things, the Duffer brothers, know how the show will eventually end, they aren’t finished exploring the world of the Upside Down.

In an interview with Variety, the creators revealed they have a spin-off idea they’re really enthusiastic about, but it’s still in the early stages – they haven’t even shared the concept yet. They admitted that Finn, however, had already correctly guessed what the series would be about, describing it as ‘very, very different.’ They emphasized that Finn is the only one who knows the premise so far.

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2026-01-15 00:21