‘Stranger Things’ Season 4 Reportedly Costs $30 Million Per Episode

Ready to get your mind flayed? An article from today’s Wall Street Journal shared that Stranger Things Season 4 “has a per-episode cost of $30 million, according to people close to the show.” The article delves into Netflix’s history of big spending in its efforts to create original content, perhaps none of which are as successful — or expensive — as Stranger Things.

Though the streaming service still leads the pack in subscription numbers amongst its competitors, Netflix is seeing a drop in subscribers, perhaps correlating to their recent price increase (the basic plan rose from $8.99 to $9.99, and standard plan from $13.99 to $15.49) that just went into effect on April 17. With Disney+ breathing down their necks (and backed by a big budget of its own), Netflix may be forced to make some changes in the near future in order to stay on top.

The platform is now looking to do everything from placing higher value on titles preferred by those lest frequent users who are most at risk of cancelling, to reducing budgets on new titles, to changing up their usual formula when licensing content, to reevaluating its major production contracts.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise, then, that Stranger Things will conclude with a fifth and final season. The beloved fantasy-horror series has found thrilling and shocking new ways to one-up itself with each new season, but in doing so, has  increased the cost of production in order to successfully up the ante. With the fourth season’s $30 million per episode price tag, Netflix (whose stock has recently been plunging) would likely struggle to sustain funding even its crowning jewel for much longer.

Stranger Things Season 4, Part 1 premieres on Netflix on May 27.