A premiere date forStranger Things season 4 is just around the corner according to series producer Shawn Levy. Since debuting on Netflix in 2016, Stranger Things has risen to become one of the streamer's most popular offerings. Several years later and three seasons in, the show is more popular than ever, and fans around the world have been dying to know when season 4 will drop. At this point, we haven't seen any new episodes since July 2019.

"To state the incredibly obvious, it's been way, way, way, way too long, and it's coming," Shawn Levy says of the upcoming season, via Variety. "It's coming soon enough. And as for when exactly that will be announced - quite soon."

Of course, the pandemic of 2020 played a big part in pushing back the premiere of Stranger Things season 4, as it did most every other TV series and movie that had been in development last year. Even so, the long wait for season 4 has just as much to do with the larger scope that the Stranger Things team had in mind for the new episodes. Levy promises that it will be so much bigger than anything we've seen in the first three seasons.

"I shot in Lithuania right before the pandemic. We have filmed in Georgia, Lithuania and New Mexico, so suffice to say season 4 is sprawling," he added. "It's visually and narratively very ambitious, much more ambitious than the prior three seasons. The delay is due in large measure to COVID and the pace at which we have to work to do so safely, but it also happens to be the season that we chose to go much bigger. It's the scale of this season and the multi-settings of season 4."

We have seen some brief teases of what to expect in the fourth season. It started with a teaser of David Harbour back as Hopper, only he's somehow wound up trapped in a Russian prison. Released all the way back in February 2020, the clip also confirmed that production had officially started on season 4.

"We're excited to officially confirm that production on Stranger Things 4 is now underway - and even more excited to announce the return of Hopper," the shows creators and showrunners, Matt and Ross Duffer, said in a statement at the time. "Although it's not all good news for our 'American'; he is imprisoned far from home in the snowy wasteland of Kamchatka, where he will face dangers both human...and other. Meanwhile, back in the states, a new horror is beginning to surface, something long buried, something that connects everything..."

Another Netflix teaser, released in May, hyped the return of Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven. In the clip, Eleven seems to be locked behind a door in the same institution she had been raised in. A familiar voice asks Eleven if she's "listening," though all we can see of Brown is an extreme close-up of her eyes. The voice seems to be that of Dr. Martin Brenner, who raised Eleven as a test subject at Hawkins Lab. What exactly is going on is the question, but we'll have to wait for Stranger Things season 4 to know for sure.

As of now, the official premiere date for Stranger Things season 4 has yet to be announced, but if what Levy says is any indication, we'll at least know a date sooner rather than later. For now, you can watch the first three seasons in their entirety on Netflix. This news comes to us from Variety.