Stranger Things has gotten even stranger, as the franchise is partnering with Playmates Toys for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle crossover.
Designed for kids eight and up, each toy pack features one Ninja Turtles figure and one character from the hit Netflix series, that recently set streaming records for Season 4.
In a further crossover, the Turtles characters are dressed in 1980s fashions, just like the characters from Stranger Things.
In the first wave of releases, the Ninja Turtle character Leonardo is paired with the super-powered teenager Eleven from Stranger Things. Additional pairings will launch in February next year.
For example, the Ninja Turtle Rafael will be paired with Hopper (pictured at top), who plays a sheriff and the fictional adoptive father of Eleven in Stranger Things.
The companies say more productions are on the slate for both TMNT and for Stranger Things, the latter being perhaps the first series on Netflix that could become a billion-dollar-plus, evergreen licensing franchise. Just recently, in fact, the song Running Up That Hill became a number one hit on Spotify and other music streamers, after it was featured under license as part of the Stranger Things story line.
TMNT reportedly has a new CGI film coming from Nickelodeon and Canadian indie studio Point Grey Pictures for release next year.
At the same time, Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of Stranger Things, have launched their own studio called Upside Down Pictures, named for the Upside Down that is the mirror world in Stranger Things. That studio was formed to manage film and TV projects that are part of the brothers’ production deal with Netflix.
Among other things, Stranger Things has spawned a huge range of apparel and accessories on the Netflix e-commerce store, and the studio is also planning a Stranger Things spinoff series, as well as a live stage play set in the brand’s universe.