Get ready to go back to Hawkins — on April 23.
That’s the release date for the first Stranger Things universe spinoff, Stranger Things: Tales From ’85. The highly anticipated Netflix animated series from Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers and executive producer Shawn Levy, along with showrunner Eric Robles, will return to the setting of the flagship series for a new, untold story with new actors voicing the familiar characters.
The teaser (below) ushers in that feeling of familiarity blended with something new, as the series returns viewers to the Upside Down following the Dec. 31, 2005, series finale. The teaser kicks off with Will showing up at Eleven’s door and being warned by Hopper to behave, before the gangs heads off on their bikes and plays D&D in the basement — until something terrifying stops them in their tracks.
Here’s the logline: “In the winter of 1985, snow blankets the town and the horrors of the Upside Down are finally fading. Our heroes Eleven, Mike, Will, Dustin, Lucas and Max have settled back into a normal life of D&D, snowball fights and quiet days. But beneath the ice, something terrifying has awakened. Could it be from the Upside Down? From the depths of Hawkins Lab? Or from somewhere else entirely? Our heroes must race to solve this mystery and save Hawkins in this untold story set in the Stranger Things universe.”
And here’s the cast: Brooklyn Davey Norstedt as Eleven, Jolie Hoang-Rappaport as Max, Luca Diaz as Mike, Elisha “EJ” Williams as Lucas, Braxton Quinney as Dustin, Ben Plessala as Will, Brett Gipson as Hopper, and Jeremy Jordan as Steve. Additional voice cast includes Odessa A’zion, Janeane Garofalo and Lou Diamond Phillips.
The Duffers and Levy have previously spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about what to expect from Tales From ’85, as the Duffers are also in development on a separate, live-action spinoff.
Levy teased about the animated series: “You’re not getting a watered-down continuation of the show you’ve watched and loved. You’re getting a different tone, a different visual style. It’s filling in blanks of mythology and timeline that you’ve never gotten in what we call ‘the mothership,’ the original show. The Duffers loved a certain style of ‘80s and ‘90s all-family audience animation and cartoons, and this show is made in the spirit of that. So it’s not ‘Stranger Things, but animated,’ it’s very much its own tone and style.”
“The idea was kind of to evoke a feeling of an ’80s cartoon,” Matt Duffer said in the announcement. “What we’ve been able to capture is the magic of Hawkins in a new way,” Robles added of the series.
The Flying Bark series is executive produced by Matt and Ross Duffer, along with Hilary Leavitt via Upside Down Pictures; Levy via 21 Laps; and Dan Cohen.
Check out more first-look photos from the series, below.
