Stranger Things was created by Matt and Ross Duffer, who wrote and directed the series with Shawn Levy as executive producer. The Duffer Brothers originally wanted to call the series Montauk, after Montauk, New York, and set it on Long Island, but filming locations around Atlanta, Georgia could not pass for a beachside setting, so they went with Indiana instead. The show's first season was released worldwide on Netflix on July 15, 2016.
The Duffer Brothers pitched the story to a number of cable networks, all of which rejected the script on the basis that they felt a plot centered around children as leading characters wouldn't work. In 2015, Dan Cohen, the VP of 21 Laps Entertainment, brought the script to his colleague Shawn Lewy. They subsequently invited the Duffer Brothers to their office and purchased the rights for the series,, giving full authorship of it to the Brothers. After reading the pilot, Netflix purchased the whole season for an undisclosed amount.
Matt and Ross Duffer have cited several influences on the series, including Stephen King, John Carpenter, Steven Spielberg, Guillermo del Toro, Alien, Japanese anime such as Akira and Elfen Lied, and video games such as Silent Hill and The Last of Us.
On August 31, 2016, Netflix renewed Stranger Things for a second season of nine episodes, to be released in 2017. The Duffer Brothers revealed that the series had been renewed for a second season before the first premiered. Regarding the decision to wait more than a month after the first season premiered to announce the renewal, Matt Duffer said, "it actually ended up working because it had built up to this fever pitch. I guess that's what [Netflix] were intending to do all the time."
Filming of season one begin in November 2015 and was extensively done in Atlanta, Georgia, while Jackson was used as fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana as a main shooting location. Filming concluded in early 2016. Other shooting locations included the Georgia Mental Health Institute as the Hawkins National Laboratory site, Bellwood Quarry, and Patrick Henry High School in Stockbridge, Georgia for the the middle and high school scenes.
