Duffer Brothers to produce new Things Happening-based horror show

While it’s generally good writing advice that things—especially atypical ones—should happen in your TV show, the Duffer Brothers may have taken that directive a little too seriously. While they’ve never explicitly confirmed it, Stranger Things is (at least in part) a clear Sean Parker-esque clean up of the phrase “stranger things have happened.” For their next project, which the Duffers are producing under their Upside Down Pictures banner, the brothers are adding back the “the.”

Their next show is currently going with the title Something Very Bad Is Going to Happen, which is, ironically, the exact phrase hundreds of SEO managers just typed into their Slack messages. At least the show seems pretty self aware, and might yet earn that unwieldy name. “Something Very Bad Is Going To Happen is an atmospheric horror series set at a wedding, following a bride and groom in the week leading up to their ill-fated nuptials,” the logline reads. “That’s not a spoiler – just read the title…”.

Of course, the Duffers are only producing this time around. The series was created by Haley Z. Boston, who previously wrote on both Guillermo Del Toro’s Cabinet Of Curiosities and Brand New Cherry Flavor for Netflix. Her directorial debut, a “nightmarish queer awakening story set at a high school football game” called Beach Logs Kill, premiered at SXSW this year in the Narrative Shorts Competition.

“We were knocked flat when we first read Haley’s script,” the Duffer Brothers shared in a statement. “She is a major new talent with a singular voice—her writing is twisted, terrifying, funny, and just… very Haley. We feel so lucky to be producing her first show, and we can’t wait to share her vision with the rest of the world.”

Now that Stranger Things is almost over—the series shared that they were halfway through filming their fifth and final season earlier this week—the Duffers will have a lot more time for new projects on their hands. Upside Down Pictures currently has multiple titles in development, including a Netflix series called The Boroughs and live-action Death Note adaptation. It’s nice to see that such big names are using their considerable influence to cultivate new talent—even if they may have to veer away from the Things Happening title convention at some point.