Duffy Brothers turns to theaters, Netflix responds to creator's departure

The core creators of Stranger Things have been moving to other companies, and Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos recently talked about this change.The Duffy brothers are hoping to make a big-budget production aimed at movie theaters, and director and executive producer Sean Levy also has major theatrical projects in the pipeline.Sarandos linked their choices to career planning and project timelines, and said the two sides would continue to collaborate.

Matt Duffy and Ross Duffy announced in August 2025 that they had signed an exclusive four-year agreement covering film and television with Paramount, which will be officially transferred in April 2026.The scope of the partnership spans both mediums, but the duo highlighted the appeal of theatrical movies to them when explaining their departure from Netflix.The next step they want to try requires the film company's distribution methods and production resources to match.

Netflix's partnership with the brothers lasted about ten years.《 Stranger Things 》 brought them to a global audience and became an important series for the platform.After a long-term project establishes a mature partnership, the creator may still have new goals: to shoot a big screen production, change the length of the narrative, or enter a different production process from the series production.

Sarandos recalled that he once encouraged the two of them to do what they wanted to do while they were around forty years old, and not to wait until they were sixty years old to regret their inaction twenty years ago.He believes the brothers are good at what they do and is confident in their future success.The response did not frame the career move as a failure of the collaboration, but instead acknowledged that a creator's plans can change over time.

The Duffy brothers expressed similar reasons.Matt said that being able to do theatrical productions is the biggest attraction.There are obvious differences between the launch method of theater projects and the audience viewing environment and the continuous production of drama series. Choosing a new partner company means that they are trying to find suitable production and distribution conditions for this goal.

The departure of the creator and the ownership of the rights to the work need to be understood separately.Netflix still owns the Stranger Things series, and the Duffy brothers signed to Paramount without taking the series with them.Sarandos made it clear that Netflix and the world of Stranger Things will continue to be involved in related results, and the series may continue to have new content in the future.

This also explains why a main creative signing cannot be directly written as a series transfer platform as a whole.The exclusive agreement determines how the creator can carry out new work during the agreed period. The copyright of existing works and development cooperation that has been launched have their own contractual basis.Series familiar to the audience and works created by the creator can continue to belong to different arrangements.

Shawn Levy's situation has another level of temporality.After working at Netflix for about ten years, he reached a cooperation with Disney's 20th Television through his 21 Laps Entertainment company. The new agreement will not take effect until October 2027.Therefore, this is not an arrangement to terminate all Netflix projects immediately after the announcement. There is a clear time point for the handover.

Levy is also currently working on Lucasfilm's Star Wars films.Sarandos believes that if a creator with a comprehensive cooperation agreement is also taking on important projects elsewhere, both parties are likely to continue to encounter schedule coordination issues.Large-scale movies require a long time to invest in preparation, shooting and post-production, and drama development has its own production rhythm. The same director's time cannot be increased indefinitely.

From this perspective, Levy's putting the cooperation agreement into the Disney system is consistent with the work he is advancing.Sarandos also expects Levy to continue to participate in Star Wars movies, but this is his judgment on the director's future career direction and cannot be directly regarded as an announcement that a sequel has been officially launched.

Netflix still has shows in development with Levy, including a hockey-themed project.Sarandos said they will do a lot of things together in the future, and some of the existing development work will continue.The new agreement changes the overall relationship of subsequent cooperation and does not mean that all previously invested projects have been cancelled.

When Levy talked about the Disney agreement, he emphasized that he agreed with the company's storytelling philosophy and felt that it was like home.This kind of personal expression is different from the way the Duffy brothers specifically talked about theater goals, but they both show that when creators choose partners, they will consider what they want to film in the next stage, and what kind of cooperation environment can accommodate these plans.

The changes of the three main creators have also made the career path after the success of Stranger Things become clearer.The experience accumulated from long-term series can be brought to the film, and the rights and development work of the existing series remain within the original contractual framework.For the audience, the real results that can be seen will have to wait until their new projects are gradually completed; it is now clear that all parties are reallocating time and cooperation resources for the next stage.