Created by the writing and directing team of brothers, Matt and Ross Duffer, the eight-episode Netflix horror-thriller series Stranger Things takes place in 1983 in the small town of Hawkins, Indiana and follows the mysterious disappearance of a 12-year-old boy and the strange things that happen there. As friends, family and local police search for answers, they are drawn into a mystery involving top secret government experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one very strange and possibly very dangerous little girl.

While at the Netflix portion of the TCA Press Tour, Matt and Ross Duffer sat down with Collider for this exclusive interview. During the conversation, they talked about receiving such a hugely positive reaction to their first TV series as showrunners, how long they developed the idea before they rolled cameras, why eight episodes was the perfect length for Season 1, whether they might ever do more episodes per season, how long they see the series running, wanting to continue to follow these characters, and why they’ll have to bring more directors in, in the future.

Collider: What’s it been like to have such a hugely positive reaction to this series? Has it just been above and beyond anything you could have ever expected?

ROSS DUFFER: No! The initial discussions were like, “If we could shoot any show in the world, what would it be?” This is what came from that. But, the bottom line is that we were sort of making it for ourselves. This is just something that we love, and you’re hoping that other people respond, but for so long, we were just in this little bubble. And we just finished it, right before it came out. So, we finished it, the last VFX shot went in, and two days later, reviews were coming out, and a week later, people were watching it. It’s been a whirlwind, but it’s been gratifying to see that the stuff that we love in these old movies hasn’t been forgotten. People are still in love with this type of storytelling. That’s great!

MATT DUFFER: The other relief for us was that it’s not just connecting with people who grew up on this stuff, but it’s also working for other people who don’t particularly know or love those films. That’s a huge relief.

ROSS: I was discouraged. A month before this came out, I was on some Super 8 message board. I don’t know why I was there, but someone was like, “It’s like Earth to Echo.” And I was like, “Earth to Echo?! Watch E.T., and watch these great movies!” I was concerned that the younger generation wasn’t that familiar with these movies. But the great thing has been that they really seem to have understood this, and also understood that it’s referencing that type of storytelling.

MATT: You know, it doesn’t matter to me, if they think our reference point is Super 8 and Earth to Echo. That’s fine. It’s amusing than anything, but it’s fine.

ROSS: But, I think if they haven’t seen these old movies, they’re discovering them.

MATT: I hope it leads them to discover them. I hope that, if a younger audience sees it, they go watch the John Carpenter stuff and pick up a Stephen King book, and they get into all of that. I hope it drives them towards that stuff.

You guys haven’t run a show before, let alone wrote, directed and produced one. How long had you been developing and working on this idea, before actually rolling cameras on it?

ROSS: We had the idea, and then we were like, “No one is ever going to let us do a TV show.” We’ve always just been working on film stuff. It was a miracle. Two weeks after we had this idea, we threw it away because we were like, “Who’s going to let us do this?” We weren’t seeking out TV work. We’d never talked to anyone, in our entire lives, about television. And then, we got a call from Donald De Line and the people working on Wayward Pines, and they were like, “Do you want to join us and help us out with this show?” That became our crazy training ground. By the time we finished that show, we knew how to do it. We took the lessons we learned from that and we wrote this script. Overall, it’s been about two and a half years since we came up with the idea. Actually, in the scheme of Hollywood, it moved fast. Once Netflix bought it, we were greenlit and we were going.

MATT: That’s the amazing thing about Netflix. They don’t mess around. It’s so frustrating in the film world because they just put things in development and it’s really hard to get it going. Whereas Netflix, once they bought it in the room, we were going. And we started casting, before we had written the second script. We found these kids, who we fell in love with, and they informed the characters, in a major way, and made us write better material for them. It was just an awesome experience. I’m worried that it’s been so awesome that it’s never going to happen again. We were talking to Shawn [Levy], our producer, and he was like, “Just savor it. It’s not always like this.” And I know that’s going to be the case. There’s a lot of luck and good timing involved, and the Netflix thing was very luck. A lot of things clicked into place and went our way, so we just feel really lucky.

Eight episodes was the perfect length for the Season 1 narrative. Was that your decision, to keep it that tight?

MATT: Yes, it was.

ROSS: When we first pitched it to Netflix, we said, “This is an eight-episode story,” and they were like, “Great!” That’s the amazing thing about Netflix. They do not dictate. They don’t tell anyone that it should be 10 episodes or 13 episodes. They just say, “What do you need to tell your story?,” and that’s an amazing freedom that most storytellers who are working in film or TV haven’t had. This is a very recent thing. On television, you’ve gotta have a certain number of breaks for commercials. You’re working on a very clear structure.

MATT: On Wayward Pines, we were writing to commercial breaks.

ROSS: And you know how many episodes it has to be because they’ve got so many slots. Or with a film, you know it can’t be too long ‘cause you can’t get enough showings in. You’re very locked in. So, I think it’s an exciting time. We can play around a bit with form and length, and all of that, and it really just boils down to what we need to tell the story.

MATT: But even though this show has been successful, there’s no pressure to make it 13 episodes. People say, “They need to make way more episodes,” but I like to think one of the reasons it works for people is because it’s paced and it feels like a movie, and that’s because it’s not too long. I think, if we pushed it to 13 episodes, we’d have to start coming up with all these bullshit adventures they’re going on, that aren’t directly tied to the main tension. Eight felt about right. But if we’re developing Season 2 and it feels like seven or nine or eleven, Netflix would support any of those lengths.

How long do you see this series running? Have you thought about future seasons?

ROSS: We don’t know, specifically. We’re very weary of making it go on past the point it should. You want to end on a high note. That’s the goal. We’ve had initial discussions, but we haven’t quite landed on it.

MATT: It seems hard to imagine it as a seven or eight season series. It just doesn’t feel like it could sustain that. At a certain point, it would start to feel ridiculous. And Netflix is also very supportive of that. Regardless of how successful the show is or becomes, they’ll want it to end when the story feels like it should end. I don’t think they want to milk things to the point where it starts to become stale.

Are you looking to stick with this family, for Season 2?

MATT: Yeah, we would introduce some new characters, but follow this group. We fell in love with the kids and all of our actors, so we want to stay with them. And now we know what they’re capable of. I know that I could throw David Harbour the craziest fastball, and he’ll hit it out of the park. I think we’ll have a lot of fun, if they let us do it.

The entire first season was directed by you guys and Shawn Levy. Do you have any interest in bringing in new filmmakers?

MATT: I think we’re going to have to.

ROSS: It’s tricky. The first season, we tried to make it as much like a movie as possible. The balancing act is maintaining that. We feel that’s part of what made it special. It was just this little small family making this movie, and it was only people that were intimately involved. It wasn’t a machine, like a lot of these shows are, where you’re just bringing in all these guest directors. So, it’s about maintaining that, but also realizing that we now have a fan base and we have kids that are growing older, and we have to get it done in time because there’s also a lot of writing to do. That, for us, is what we’re still figuring out how to do in a timely manner while still trying to maintain that very cinematic feel.

MATT: There are a lot of amazing directors out there whose work we love, and I would love to ask and see if they would do it.

Stranger Things is now available on Netflix.