One of the things that sometimes gets overlooked when it comes to hit shows is that you sometimes don’t know what’s going to be a hit…and what’s not going to be a hit. For example, the show many consider as the “greatest” in M*A*S*H (which still holds a records rating for a finale) almost got canceled in its first season. And for many streaming services, some of their biggest hits came out of nowhere to shock everyone, with Stranger Things being a great example.
And it wasn’t just fans and critics who were stunned by the show’s quality and acting, it was some of the cast, including Chief Hopper himself in David Harbour:
“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 said in an interview “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.”
…yeah, he was wrong about that. Though again, it’s not fair to blast him for this because he and the others were in the thick of it and likely only seeing problems versus seeing success.
Oh, and about that “$20 budget”? That would get fixed in every season afterward, as Netflix reportedly spent about $300 million dollars doing Season 4, which was just 10 episodes if you recall. There are Marvel and DC comics movies that spend less for a single movie, and their profit is much easier to see.
Regardless, Harbour is still on Stranger Things, and fans are pumped for the final season in 2024.
Source: Insider
