‘Stranger Things’ Has Cast a Spell on Metro Atlanta for a Decade

By Rodney Ho

During the summer of 2016 metro Atlanta was a busy hive of TV and film production activity, benefiting from the last gasp of cable dominance.

The biggest basic cable show was AMC’s monster hit “The Walking Dead,” based out of Senoia. FX’s genre-twisting, award-winning “Atlanta” was weeks from its debut. And Tyler Perry was still working with OWN, bringing millions of fans to his soap “The Haves and the Have Nots.”

But streaming was about to eat cable’s lunch, inexorably changing the way people consume media. And Netflix was ready to take charge, fishing around for original ideas to hook its growing subscriber base. The streaming service took a chance on unknown twin brothers Matt and Ross Duffer, who had a concept that became “Stranger Things.”

Nearly a decade later, the series returns for its fifth and final season with eight episodes spread over three release dates: Wednesday, Christmas Day and New Year’s Eve. It’s such a big deal, the final episode will screen in 350 movie theaters nationwide Dec. 31-Jan. 1.

Read more at The Atlanta Journal Constitution