Steve Harrington is fashioning a new tool to take on the Upside Down in Stranger Things 4. Joe Keery, who plays fan-favorite Steve in the hit Netflix series, was spotted on the show’s set in Atlanta on Tuesday, June 15, with several cast members filming Season 4. In the photos, Joe, 29, is wielding a battle ax — a stark difference from the baseball bat that he used to combat the devilish entities from the Upside Down in seasons past.
Joe wasn’t the only cast member wielding a weapon in the on-set photos. Natalia Dyer (Nancy Wheeler) was seen holding a shotgun around the set. Sadie Sink (Max Mayfield), Caleb MacLaughlin (Lucas Sinclair) and Maya Hawke (Robin Buckley) were also present for the scene.
Stranger Things 4 does not yet have a release date. Production on the season kicked off early last year but was shut down in March 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Filming resumed in October 2020 and has continued on.
Millie Bobby Brown (Eleven), Finn Wolfhard (Mike Wheeler), Noah Schnapp (Will Byers), Gaten Matarazzo (Dustin Henderson), Charlie Heaton (Jonathan Byers), Priah Ferguson (Erica Sinclair), Winona Ryder (Joyce Byers), Cara Buono (Karen Wheeler) and Brett Gelman (Murray Bauman) are all returning for the new season. David Harbour (Jim Hopper) is back, too, despite his character seemingly dying at the end of Season 3. The group will be joined by several new cast members, including Robert Englund, Jamie Campbell Bower, Eduardo Franco, Joseph Quinn and Amybeth McNulty.
Plot details from the new season have been kept under wraps. However, Stranger Things creators Matt and Ross Duffer did confirm that the first episode of Season 4 is titled “The Hellfire Club.” Netflix has also shared two teasers — the first, which dropped in February 2020, showed men working on a snowy railroad in Russia and confirmed Hopper’s return, while the second teaser, released in May 2021, featured the return of Matthew Modine’s Dr. Brenner.
Season 4 of Stranger Things is also not expected to be the last. “We know what the end is, and we know when it is,” Ross previously told The Hollywood Reporter of the series’ end. “[The pandemic] has given us time to look ahead, figure out what is best for the show. Starting to fill that out gave us a better idea of how long we need to tell that story.”