The sleepy suburban town of Hawkins, Indiana, is booming. The first teaser promo for Netflix’s Stranger Things Season 3 comes disguised as a local commercial for the new Starcourt Mall “opening next summer” in town. While it’s still the ‘80s in Hawkins, it will be well into 2019 before Stranger Things returns to Netflix for your binge-viewing pleasure.
On Monday, the official social media for Stranger Things premiered a new video teaser promoting the Starcourt Mall, a new shopping center with such immortal retail establishments like the Gap, Wicks ‘n’ Sticks, and Sam Goody.
“Ahoy! Something is coming… to Hawkins, Indiana!” reads the tweet.
The mere mention of extinct mall staples like “Waldenbooks” will send nostalgic chills down the spines of most older millennials. But the real treat in the teaser happens in the spotlight for Scoops Ahoy, where fans will find a familiar (and awkward) face serving up dollops of Rocky Road: Steve Harrington, played by a returning Joe Keery. It seems that someone out of the main Stranger Things gang is starting to learn some responsibility.
A real life murder at the Stranger Things mall?
What’s interesting, and very creepy, is that the actual mall serving as the set for Starcourt is, in fact, an active (but struggling) shopping mall in Duluth, Georgia. As reported by the Gwinnett Post Daily last May, the Netflix series took over parts of the Gwinnett Place Mall to fill up “vacant store fronts in the struggling shopping center” to “include some retro looks.”
While Starcourt is thriving in America’s 1980s boom period, a variety of economic downturns in the 2000s has seen major retail franchises flee Gwinnett Place. There was even a dead body found in the food court last January.
There is not yet a full season trailer for Stranger Things Season 3. But let’s hope it can top the still-amazing Season 2 trailer that was set to Michael Jackson’s immortal classic pop banger, “Thriller.”
Stranger Things Season 3 will premiere on Netflix in Summer 2019.
Correction 11/25/18: This article states the Starcourt Mall in the Stranger Things Season 3 teaser promo is shot in the real Gwinnett Place shopping mall. It was previously stated that the Gwinnett Place Mall is located in Lawrence, Georgia. The mall is located in Duluth, Georgia.
