After three seasons shooting entirely in Atlanta, Netflix’s “Stranger Things” will shift a significant portion of shooting on its fourth season to New Mexico at the streaming giant’s new state-of-the-art facilities at Albuquerque Studios. Netflix acquired the facility in 2018 for $30 million, one-third of the price it cost to build the facility in 2007.
Netflix VPs of Physical Production Patty Whitcher and Momita SenGupta explained the reasons for the production shift to Deadline yesterday, SenGupta saying “Season 4 is bigger, bolder and more intricate than ever, so this is the first time the show will be travelling beyond Atlanta.”
The end of the third season saw Sheriff Jim Hopper (David Harbour) left stranded in a Russian prison cell following a catastrophic incident at the Harcourt Mall, while the Byers family moves out of Hawkins where the show is primarily set.
Some scenes have already been shot in Lithuania, specifically exterior location scenes featuring Hopper in his Russian prison (and glimpsed in a recent teaser). Full production is now expected to get underway.
Both Netflix and NBCUniversal with their own new studio are committing big to shooting in Albuquerque, New Mexico to fill their content streams for the next few years, utilising a ton of local crew on a regular basis and offer the easy option of bringing people in from Los Angeles which is under two hours flight time away.
