Stranger Things is one of Netflix's biggest and most recognizable TV shows, and as such, there have been conversations about how to grow the series, director Shawn Levy has said. But don't get too excited about any potential spinoff just yet. Conversations about how to expand the wider Stranger Things universe are "hardly evolved," Levy said in a new interview with Collider.

　　"I'd say what's been made clear is this is obviously a tent pole, arguably the tent pole franchise in the history of Netflix," Levy said. "Obviously certain other shows played key roles in their evolution, but Stranger Things with 196 million viewers over the time that we've been on the air, that's a lot of household, 196 million. And it's unique in that Netflix service."

　　Levy acknowledged that "there is an interest and a real voracious appetite for any offshoot" of Stranger Things, and this could be "any other iteration format, or extension of the franchise, the characters, the mythology."

　　"Certainly those conversations are hardly evolved, but they're also not non-existent, boy did I dance around that one. And you cannot take those words and turn it into a headline, that's like Stranger Things, executive producer, Shawn Levy confirmed spinoff because I didn't do that," Levy said.

　　Although there have been no Stranger Things TV spinoffs to date, Netflix produced a prequel podcast with Maya Hawke earlier this year, and Netflix produced a Stranger Things video game in 2019, while Stranger Things crossed over with Smite earlier this year. Cosmetics based on Stranger Things have also been released in Fortnite.

　　Netflix does have a history of creating spinoffs for franchises that prove to be popular. For example, after the huge success of The Witcher season one, Netflix announced a prequel series called Blood Origin and an animated movie titled Nightmare of the Wolf (which is out now).

　　Stranger Things returns for its fourth season in 2022, which is a lengthier wait than some might have expected or hoped for. Levy recently spoke about why Season 4 is taking so long to come out, and it comes down to the pandemic and the team's bigger creative ambitions.

　　"It is a kind of perfect storm combination of COVID shutdown, slower pace of filming in COVID protocols and health protocols, which are necessary, and coincidentally we chose Season 4 to be by far--and I mean, by far, far, far--the most ambitious of the seasons," he said.

　　Winona Ryder, Finn Wolfhard, Millie Bobby Brown, Gaten Matarazzo, Caleb McLaughlin, Noah Schnapp, Sadie Sink, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton, and Joe Keery are all returning for Season 4, while there are plenty of newcomers, too. Levy's latest project was Free Guy, a video game movie starring Ryan Reynolds that is riding high at the box office right now.