About America's Most Watched Stream Show Of All Time
The real life Stranger Things Hawkins Lab
Stranger Things is America's most watched streamed show of all time. The 80’s themed, five season series broke the records while Season 4 aired as the most streamed show on Netflix in 2022. The 9 episodes of Stranger Things Season 4 counted over 1.35 billion hours viewed on Netflix in its first 28 days. That’s the most ever for an English-language show on the streamer, with the Korean epic Squid Game No. 1 overall worldwide with 1.65 billion hours in its first 28 days.
Stranger Things Season 4 also holds the Neilson ratings most watched streamed show of all time in a week with over 7 billion viewing minutes and Season 4 - Part 2 holds the second biggest-ever streaming week in the history of Nielson's rankings with 5.9 billion minutes viewed. Season 4 also set a new Variety Trending TV record with six weeks at number one. And finally the 4th season of Stranger Things broke the all time Netflix record after hitting 79 consecutive days on the Top 10 charts. That is the longest streak of any TV show ever on the Netflix top 10 list.
Did you know the cultural phenomenon Stranger Things was based off a real life Hawkins Laboratory? Its true! In fact Stranger Things was originally titled 'Montauk" and was planned to be set in Montauk, Long Island, New York. Dubbed the 'Area 51' of the East Coast, it is the location of the creepy, real life lab called Camp Hero. Preston Nicols was an electrical engineer who grew up in Montauk, and claims to have worked on the suspicious project in an exclusive interview with The Sun.
He stated “I found myself on this screwball project which became known as the Montauk Project.” According to a number of sources the US Government’s top secret Montauk Project allegedly involved kidnapped kids, mind-control experiments and time travel. His story of Camp Hero is documented in his book 'The Montauk Project'.
Camp Hero, a decommissioned military base is thought by many to have once been the site of graphic, government-sanctioned human experiments comparable to the atrocities committed by the Nazis in concentration camps during World War II. It was once home to a U.S. Army base during World War II and an Air Force station during the Cold War.
The base was originally a coastal defense station that was disguised as a fishing village, and its location was chosen to prevent a potential invasion of New York from the sea. Camp Hero was named after Major General Andrew Hero, Jr., who was the Army's commander of coastal artillery and who died in 1942.
It is now a 754-acre state park. The park occupies a portion of the former Montauk Air Force Station. The park now features forests, freshwater wetlands, and bluffs with dramatic views of the Atlantic Ocean. Camp Hero is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It was constructed in 1942 as the home of the Montauk Air Force Station and decommissioned in 1981.
'Montauk' was a television sci-fi horror concept created by the Duffer Brothers, and the original iteration of their hit Netflix series Stranger Things. This early version of Stranger Things was planned to be set in Montauk, Long Island rather than the fictional Hawkins, Indiana. Montauk is introduced as an eight-hour sci-fi horror epic taking place in Long Island in 1980.
It's detailed as a “love letter to the golden age of Steven Spielberg and Stephen King”, drawing inspiration from the supernatural classics of the era. The Montauk Pilot is the original script for what would eventually become the first episode of Stranger Things.
The Duffer Brothers originally wanted the show to take place in Montauk, Long Island (and for the show to correspondingly be titled Montauk) because they desired to recapture the "coastal-town Amity feel" in Jaws. The setting was changed to the fictional Indiana town of Hawkins due to production reasons, filming in Atlanta. Stranger Things is sure to be America's most viewed streamed show of all time for many years to come.
The original Montauk story from the pitch book began with the following introduction:
"We begin at Camp Hero in the fall of 1980, a few months before the base will be shut down by the U.S. Government. A mysterious experiment has gone horribly awry. And something has gotten out. On this very night, a young boy, Will Byers, vanishes into thin air. His disappearance has a potent effect on the small town community, particularly on his best friend, Mike Wheeler, his brother, Jonathan, his mother, Joyce, and the reluctant chief of police, Jim “Hop” Hopper. We will follow each of these characters as they grapple with and investigate Will's disappearance. As they peel back the layers of this mystery, they will all arrive at the same shocking conclusion".