Stephen King has blasted back into pop culture consciousness over the last few months in a huge way. Not only did “It” dominate the box office at the start of September, but “The Dark Tower,” “1922” and “Gerald’s Game” have each been adapted and released recently, too.
But there’s an argument to be made that Stephen King’s renaissance actually began back in July, 2016, when the first season of “Stranger Things” was put on Netflix. Ahead of the “Stranger Things” debut its creators, The Duffer Brothers, admitted that the legendary author influenced everything from the title font to key plot points and characters.
Even Stephen King spotted the similarities between his work and “Stranger Things.” So much so that after binge watching the Netflix series he decided to take to Twitter to commend The Duffer Brothers on both their constant references to his oeuvre and the show as a whole.
Watching STRANGER THINGS is looking watching Steve King’s Greatest Hits. I mean that in a good way.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) July 17, 2016
Now that season two of “Stranger Things” is upon us you can expect to see dozens more references to Stephen King and his stories over the upcoming batch of new episodes.
In fact, just last month The Duffer Brothers revealed that Finn Wolfhard’s participation in the adaptation of King’s “It” as potty mouth Richie Tozier already had an adverse impact on season 2 of “Stranger Things” because he couldn’t stop swearing while filming. Fingers crossed that The Duffer Brothers were able to curb Wolfhard’s expletives and that it didn’t bleed into the character of Mike Wheeler.
Either way, those associated with the show should be able to get over it. Because “Stranger Things” and The Duffer Brothers clearly owe a huge debt to Stephen King. You can remind yourselves exactly why by checking out our gallery above, which features all of the major references to Stephen King and his work over the course of “Stranger Things” so far.
