David Harbour: I Thought ‘No One Would Watch’ ‘Stranger Things,’ Netflix Series Would Be a ‘Disaster’

At first, “Stranger Things” was looking like a flop…at least, according to actor David Harbour.

Despite the hit Netflix series breaking streaming records and spurring a whole franchise complete with a spin-off series and stage play adaptation, the Duffer Brothers-helmed ’80s-set teen sci-fi series was an underdog project from the start.

“I remember when we were shooting the first season. We were down in Atlanta, Netflix had given us a budget of about $20,” star Harbour explained on BBC’s “The One Show” (via Insider). “Halfway through I remember my hair person coming up to me, like about Episode Four, we were shooting, and she was like, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna work.'”

Harbour continued, “By the time we finished, we wrapped, I thought we wouldn’t get a second season, we’d be the first Netflix show kind of ever to never get a second season. We thought no one would watch it, it was going to be a disaster.”

Oh, how wrong he was.

“Stranger Things” has all but taken over the zeitgeist with the fourth season leaving fans in a frenzy after a cliffhanger conclusion heading into the fifth and final season.

“For the first time ever, we don’t wrap things up at the end of 4, so it’s going to be moving,” series co-creator Matt Duffer said earlier this year. “I don’t know that it’s going to be going 100 miles an hour at the start of [Season] 5, but it’s going to be moving pretty fast. Characters are already going to be in action. They’re already going to have a goal and a drive, and I think that’s going to carve out at least a couple hours and make this season feel really different.”

The Duffer Brothers confirmed the upcoming spin-off series will not follow breakout stars Millie Bobby Brown or Joe Keery and instead by “1,000 percent different” than the current flagship show.

“I’ve read these rumors that there’s going be an Eleven spinoff, that there’s going be a Steve and Dustin spinoff or that it’s another number,” the Duffer Brothers said. “That’s not interesting to me because we’ve done all that. We’ve spent I don’t know how many hours exploring all of that. So it’s very different.”