Early career After the brothers had written and directed several short films, they wrote a script titled
Origin, which gained them an agent, and their script for the post-apocalyptic horror film
Hidden was acquired by
Warner Bros. Pictures in 2011. The brothers directed
Hidden, which was released in 2015. Next they were hired as writers and producers for the
Fox television series
Wayward Pines.
Breakthrough with Stranger Things With experience in television, they began pitching their idea for
Stranger Things, which Dan Cohen eventually brought to
Shawn Levy. Backed by Levy's
21 Laps production company, the show was quickly picked up by
Netflix. The show is set in 1980s
Indiana and is an
homage to
1980s pop culture, inspired and aesthetically informed by the works of
Steven Spielberg,
John Carpenter,
Wes Craven,
Sam Raimi,
David Lynch,
Stephen King, and
George Lucas, among others. It was released on July 15, 2016, to overwhelming praise, and began to develop a
cult following online. On September 30, 2019, Netflix announced it had signed the Duffers for additional films and television shows over the coming years. In March 2021, the duo announced they would team up with Spielberg to adapt Stephen King's and
Peter Straub's
The Talisman as a Netflix series. They would both be executive producers via
Amblin Partners and Monkey Massacre and hired Curtis Gwinn, who worked as a writer-executive producer on
Stranger Things, to act as writer and showrunner of the project. Following the premiere of the fourth season of
Stranger Things in July 2022, the Duffers launched the production company Upside Down Pictures, for which they recommitted to Netflix with several new projects. Among these include a live-action series adaptation of
Death Note, a series adaptation of
The Talisman, and the
Stranger Things animated spin-off ''
Tales from '85. As of 2024, they were also the executive producers of The Boroughs'', described as a supernatural drama set in a retirement community in the New Mexico desert.
Paramount In August 2025, it was announced that the brothers and their company would be signing a four-year deal at
Paramount, which results in the duo's departure from their long-time partnership at Netflix in April 2026. Their deal at Paramount will not only create new series from the studio's TV and streaming division, but also offers an opportunity for the brothers to produce and direct theatrical feature films for the studio as well, something that the duo were not able to do while signed with Netflix. ==Personal lives==