Netflix is launching its largest consumer products program ever to support the debut of the fifth and final season of its hit sci-fi series, "Stranger Things."
The promotional push is being executed like a blockbuster movie release, a rare move for a TV series. Retailers are offering an expansive range of products, from Demogorgon Crunch cereal and Hellfire Club backpacks to over 150 items sold at Target stores.
Many brands are leveraging the show's 1980s setting. Gatorade brought back its '80s Citrus Cooler flavor, and Walmart is selling a Stranger Things collection of Care Bears.
The global push includes a Hawkins Christmas market in Paris (Galeries Lafayette) and a traveling Hawkins Lab experience that has visited San Francisco, New York, Rio de Janeiro, and Sydney. "Netflix Houses," new mall locations, also feature dedicated Stranger Things areas.
The final season's marketing kicked off with a large cycling event in Los Angeles called "One Last Ride." The show will also feature prominently in the holiday season, including a Stranger Things float with the band Foreigner in the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.
Instead of a full-season drop, Netflix will stagger the final episodes around major US holidays, four episodes debut on Wednesday (before Thanksgiving), Three episodes debut on Christmas Day, The final episode debuts on New Year's Eve.
Netflix intends to keep the Stranger Things universe alive after the main series concludes a stage play, "Stranger Things: The First Shadow," is running on Broadway and London's West End. An animated series is set for next year. A live-action spinoff is planned. Co-Creator Ross Duffer confirmed it will be a new story within the Stranger Things universe, not a continuation of the Hawkins characters' narrative, with Executive Producer Shawn Levy promising they will "never going to repeat ourselves."
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