Articles
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 EP Reveals How Spinoff Series Became A Reality, How Nikki’s Addition Revitalized Will, and More (Exclusive)
When you have a beloved franchise like Stranger Things, it can be challenging to find ways to extend that franchise without losing what made the original so captivating. Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 has successfully recaptured some of that magic by going back to a very specific point in time, but it’s also brought a number of new elements to the table. ComicBook has the chance to speak with Tales From ’85 Executive Producer Eric Robles all about how they finally cracked the code on a spinoff, the wild new monsters threatening Hawkins, and what the new characters bring to this beloved world.
Robles has had a remarkable journey from getting his first intern opportunity with an animation studio to winning Emmys for his original creations and now helming one of Netflix’s biggest franchises of all time. It’s also wild to think that at one point someone told him he wouldn’t make it in this industry and to go ahead and stop right then and there, and thankfully, Robles did exactly the opposite.
“I don’t want to sidetrack or anything, but I’m going to say that is a lesson for all of us, when you realize, like, nobody knows anything, and we’re all figuring it out in this crazy world,” Robles said. “I just got really fortunate at a young age that, you know, my parents struggled really hard. As a kid, we were pretty low-income for sure, as kids growing up out here in LA, and they struggled, they worked really hard. So if my parents fought that hard, why shouldn’t I fight that hard? And why should I let anybody else dictate what my future could be? Especially when you have the support of good family, good friends, and everybody around you, man. So I said, you know what? Nah, I’m going to keep doing what I love, and this was it, and here we are.”
A Secret Project Ended Up Being The Perfect Stranger Things Opportunity
After wrapping another project, Robles was ready to jump into a horror project, and after developing a series concept, he took it to Netflix. While that didn’t end up getting greenlit, it led directly to an opportunity to work on Stranger Things, and this new partnership would crack the code for what would become Stranger Things: Tales From ’85.
“At the time, this was after I wrapped up on my last show at Nickelodeon and ended up going over to Netflix, which was Glitch Techs, and so we wrapped up on Glitch Techs, and then Covid hit, like immediately right after,” Robles said. “And I was like, okay, well, I’m forced to stay in my house and figure out what the next big move is, right? And I’ve been wanting to scratch this itch since, actually, 2004. Believe it or not, I pitched a horror series back at Cartoon Network in 2004, and we got it in development back then, and then it just never got out of development. But long story short, I was like, I want to go back to horror. Like, I want to do horror, man, and so I started developing.”
“I took about five months, literally, just to develop this idea, and I took it to Netflix. Netflix was like, ” Whoa, Robles, this is really cool, man”, and we were in talks, kind of no commitment, just talks back and forth for about five months or so. Five, six months, and then they finally said, like, hey, listen, we really love you. We love your idea. We love this idea that you want to kind of play with, but it’s going to compete with something else we’re developing, right? And I was like, okay, cool. No problem. That’s just the business, man, you know? And they called me back about two weeks later or so, and they were like, ” Hey, Robles, you want to come down here and check out what we had over here in development?” And I’m like, I want to see what you got, and so I went, and they showed me Stranger Things,” Robles said.
“I’m like, dude, are you kidding me? This is amazing. Like, I would love to work on it. It’s what I wanted to do right now, is this genre, right? And they said, ” Well, here’s the deal. We’re really having a hard time figuring out how to break this concept because it takes place between seasons two and three of the flagship series. Eleven has closed the gate, meaning you can’t open up a gate, but you have to create some kind of way to figure out monsters in this universe, right between 2 and 3.” And I was like, okay, so how can you do that? And then they’re like, well, that’s your problem,” Robles said.
“So you know, I love challenges, and again, just going back to our original conversation, when somebody says you can’t, I’m like, just wait, and so it was the same idea. And I started thinking about, I grew up in the 80s, thinking about all those films we used to watch, and there were so many movies back then that were coming out on VHS for the sake of, like, putting things out. They couldn’t put them out fast enough, you know what I mean? And so you had those kinds of A movies, B movies, C movies, and I remember when I was younger, I watched Reanimator, and I was like, oh, shoot, Reanimator. Then it just clicked,” Robles said. “I’m like, Hawkins lab science meets Upside Down matter, right? If you can take dead matter, find a way to bring it back to life, then we might have something pretty cool here, you know what I mean? Going back to the concept of Reanimator, bringing dead bodies back to life and stuff.”
“I went back and I pitched it to Netflix. They sent it over to the Duffer brothers. They saw this, and they were just like, ” Who is this guy? Bring them in here man, let’s have a conversation.” We were supposed to have this, like, half-hour meeting about this thing. They ended up geeking out so hard about animation, about possibilities of what we can do, and once I pitched it to them, that half-hour meeting went to like an hour and a half of just us, purely just geeking out about the possibilities of what this can be,” Robles said.
“Now they were wrapping up, they were in post on season four at that time. So it’s not like this was the master plan, right? This was just this exciting and creative thing. That’s how it works. When you’re excited, genuinely excited about it, that’s when it works, and you know, a lot of people are like, oh, well, you know, they’re just trying to milk the IP, and it’s like, no, it’s genuine love, dude. It was genuine love. We got in there, we started kind of developing it, we started talking about it, and then we hit the ground running. And that’s how it all kind of just started,” Robles said.
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 Respects The Show’s Canon, But Also Creates An Exciting New Adventure
When you have to create a new adventure between two moments in time, it can be difficult to balance the elements of the established story while also creating something fresh and different. That was a challenge in Tales From ’85 as well, but it’s a challenge the team took head-on, and The Duffer Brothers were supportive of the series doing its own thing as long as it worked within the overall framework of the series.
“Obviously, it’s a huge challenge, because again, you want to respect what the show is, right? You want to respect that there is already canon to the show, and you want to respect that that exists. But again, we’re looking at this time, which I call this frozen time, right between two and three that allows us to play,” Robles said. “Now, if we would just be like, hey, let’s just make seasons two and three. No monsters, no nothing. It’s just the kids hanging out. I don’t know how long that would last as far as excitement. So by natural creativity, it’s gonna grow. It’s gonna become something awesome. And that’s what we plan to do, is say, like, how do we have fun within this timeline?”
“The Duffer Brothers said, as long as you don’t interfere with the main canon show, and you kind of allow yourself to have fun in this alternate little space here, then go for it. Have fun, and if you have fun and you create great adventures, the audience will accept it,” Robles said. “They’ll just go with it. They’ll enjoy the ride, and very much like we did with The Real Ghostbusters back in the 80s, man. You know what I mean? It’s not like we saw Ghostbusters 2 and were like, wait a second. How come they never talked about the Boogeyman, or ah, they never talked about Sandman. It was just a great adventure, right?”
“Back then, especially for myself, as a fan of Ghostbusters, I just wanted to hang out with those guys again. And in the same way, I really just wanted to hang out with my best friends again, and that’s what I’m trying to allow everybody to do,” Robles said. “It’s like, do you guys want to hang out with your best friends again? Because these kids are pretty awesome, man. And so in that, we just started really kind of enjoying ourselves in the adventure.”
Tales From ’85 Pushes Will Back Into The Spotlight, And Nikki’s Addition Is A Big Reason Why
The series doesn’t just reunite the original crew at an earlier moment in time, as we also get to meet several new characters, including Nikki Baxter. Nikki is a new student at Hawkins and ends up in the middle of all the Upside Down shenanigans, and while she’s an absolutely delightful character on her own, she also brings something special out of Will that shifts him back into the spotlight, which didn’t really happen during some of those middle series seasons.
“You know, you nailed it right there, because Will, between these seasons, he just kind of faded away. He just happened to be there, but he wasn’t really appreciated, right? In the sense of, where is he at in his life? You know, Mike’s caught up with Elle right now, and he’s all in love with her. You got Lucas and Max dealing with their whole situation. You got Dustin wanting to go on the next adventure, which left Will there,” Robles said.
“We wanted to really kind of highlight Will in this season, and then said, okay, well, who is somebody we could bring in that has no context to zombie boy, right? And can say the word zombie boy and be like, dude, are you kidding me? That’s such a cool freaking name, as opposed to looking at it as a negative, and having Odessa’s character really allowed us to do that,” Robles said.
“It really gave this new sense of strength and ownership to Will’s backstory, to who he is currently, and how he can grow from even just this experience. So having this character that has no context to Will, but looks at Will and says, dude, you went to another dimension. You fought monsters, and you just went back to junior high. Like, dude, that’s awesome. And looking and thinking about it that way, you’re just like, hey, that is pretty awesome, so it gives him strength in a different way,” Robles said.
“One thing that I do want to put out there, Matthew, is that this series has real relationships. It’s not just about the monsters. It’s about these core relationships and what they’re going through. And Nikki Baxter’s character comes with her own baggage, with her mom and moving around so much, so they have their own issues,” Robles said. “And you see the arguments between not only friends, but you see the arguments even between a mother and daughter, which is something that a lot of times you don’t see in an animated series, you know what I mean? And you just kind of go with the action, action, action, or the cool villain or the cool good guy, but instead, we want to kind of slow down and have these real emotional moments that can actually connect to everybody out there.”
Stranger Things: Tales From ’85 premieres on Netflix on April 23, 2026.
What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!
