The Duffer Brothers hope 'Stranger Things' will do for a new generation what 'Scream' did for them

Welcome to It's A Success! In this series, IndieWire talks to the creators and showrunners behind some of our favorite Emmy-nominated TV shows about when they realized their show was becoming a hit.

Despite having the same opening weekend as their fourth season, "Stranger Things" creators Matt and Ross Duffer saw the success of "Top Gun: Maverick" as a reflection of their own success.

"It obviously did well, and it's such a retro movie. The nostalgia works for the older generation, those of us who grew up on 'Top Gun', but it resonates with everyone else too. . And the storytelling is so, so traditional Hollywood blockbuster, and it blew up," Matt Duffer said during a Zoom interview with IndieWire. "He's not trying to do anything super fancy. It's just trying to tell a good, simple story. That's when I'm like, 'OK, that kind of storytelling always works.' 'other.'"

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The showrunner twins never expected their nostalgia-filled 80s sci-fi horror Netflix series to resonate with audiences the way it did, and they continue to be surprised by its accomplishments, with Season 4 breaking Netflix records and earning 13 Emmy nominations, including Outstanding Drama Series. Matt added that seeing their show and other projects like "Top Gun: Maverick" nod to the golden age of original blockbusters so well this summer has been a relief. "It's like, 'OK, I don't have to pretend that I like this other stuff. I can just keep doing and telling the kind of stories that I like and know how to tell.'"

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

IndieWire: When did you realize 'Stranger Things' was becoming a hit? Was it clear in season 1?

Matt Duffer: Well, it's funny, looking back, it was kind of a slow realization. It really felt like Season 1 had had the snowball effect. It was probably the whole Barb phenomenon. Ross and I didn't understand social media at all at the time, but [there were] a bunch of articles, and then enough people told Ross and I that it wasn't normal, what was happening. But Netflix also took a really long time to tell us we were okay. And that was a time when they didn't give numbers, right? They would just say "We are very happy". So officially, we had "We are very happy." Then "Saturday Night Live" was the other big one, where it was like, "This is crazy."