Anais Gutierrez
The Science Museum of Minnesota sold $400 k in ‘Stranger Things’ apparel. Fans of the show crashed the museum’s website trying to buy a hoodie featured in Season 2. Meanwhile, 15.8million watched Season 2 of the premiere in the first weekend, and the season finale sparked some controversy over a kiss.
Stranger Things fans are the most loyal in the world
On ‘Stranger Things,’ Dustin is usually wearing cool hoodies and caps, and the second season was not the exception. Specifically, the first episode where he shows up wearing a purple hoodie with a Brontosaurus, nicknamed “Thunder Lizard,” from the Science Museum of Minnesota.
Fans were quick to show the cool science-inspired hoodie, and the St. Paul-based museum also noticed the show’s awesome wardrobe choice and called attention to the sweatshirt on its site as it promised to open sale of the model.
Tuesday morning, the museum opened sale of not only the hoodie but also, crew necks and t-shirts with the same “Brontosaurus” and “thunder lizard” text and image of a dinosaur. However, it underestimated the demand and ran out of items to sell and the site crashed as fierce fans were trying to get their own hoodie.
The total sale was of 10,000 items for a total haul of $400,000.
“For us, we’re just relishing this opportunity to be connected to the popular show, especially one that has characters that are interested in science,” says Kim Ramsden, the pr director at the Science Museum of Minnesota.
“As a non-profit, all of the proceeds will go back to our mission of science and education and inspire other young kids like Dustin on the show and his friends to have an interest in science.”
As for the hoodie, it was first available from the museum’s Explore Store in the early 1980s and found again by Kim Wilcox, ‘Stranger Things‘ costume designer, while she was hunting for period inspiration
“I really loved the Brontosaurus for Dustin, so we bought the original. Then we made our own purple hoodie with this great dinosaur art in Gaten’s size.” Wilcox was delighted that the science museum had not only noticed the hoodie but decided to bring back the retired design for a special ‘Stranger Things’-inspired re-release.
Stranger Things fans: Check out what Dustin is wearing in season 2, episode 1! Yes, we want one too. Working on it! #StrangerThings2 pic.twitter.com/Q8JNrUiwOl
— Science Museum of MN (@sciencemuseummn) October 27, 2017
Millions of people tuned in to see Stranger Things 2
A few weeks ago, company Nielsen promised to reveal us streaming tv ratings, and the numbers are huge. According to Nielsen, 15.8 million people watched Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ Season 2 premiere episode over its opening weekend.
Of that overall Live + 3 Day (of sorts) audience, nearly 11 million members come from adults 18-49 demographic. Also, 361,000 people watched all nine of the new hour-long episodes on Day 1.
The company also revealed that cross Friday, Saturday and Sunday, the average number of ‘Stranger Things 2’ episodes that a viewer watched was 2.9. Nielsen also revealed some social media interactions data and said there were 7.2 million social interactions across Facebook and Twitter about the anticipated show.
The ‘Stranger Things’ numbers over its opening weekend have 800,000 more than AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’ season 8 with the benefit of three days worth of catch-up viewing.The Netflix show also did better than the most comparable World Series game. Fox’s Game 3 on Friday attracted 15.7 million total viewers in L+3 data.
Finally, the premiere episode to ‘Stranger Things 2’ outdrew Friday’s No. 1 entertainment series, CBS’ ‘Blue Bloods,’ by 3.9 million total viewers.
Let’s talk about that unscripted kiss
Talking about the series new season, there was a scene in the season finale that sounded the alarms. The kiss between actress Sadie Sink and Caleb McLaughlin.
Fans became fiercely protective of the 15-year-old actress after the Netflix’s show creators, the Duffer Brothers, joked they made her kiss McLaughlin because she seemed so uncomfortable with the idea.
During the episode of ‘Beyond Stranger Things’ that’s sparked the kissing concerns, Sink said she felt “stressed out” by the kiss, which was shot in a room full of cast and crew for a school dance scene in the season finale. Show creators Matt and Ross Duffer were present for the segment, along with McLaughlin.
The show creators said the kiss wasn’t in the script, but when the idea came up, Ross said Sink’s reaction to the idea was “so strong” and she was “so freaked” that they ultimately insisted on it.
Fans who objected were particularly angry that Ross said the kiss was Sink’s “fault” because of her reaction. As for Sadie Sink, she denied being “uncomfortable” and elaborated on the kiss and its significance to the show.
“I mean, of course, I was nervous because it’s the first kiss, right? But I never objected to [it] or felt pushed into anything.” The actress said the kiss was important to the characters and how the episode ended.
“I always felt comfortable and the Duffer Brothers, they do the best job. And always create a comfortable space. And if I felt uncomfortable with anything, I wouldn’t have done it.”
The Stranger Things creators later blamed it ON THE CHILD, saying that they forced her to do it presicely because she didn’t want to.
— Aura Bogado (@aurabogado) November 4, 2017
The director, an adult man, saw that a teen girl was uncomfortable with a situation, which made him MORE EAGER to put her in the situation.
— Anna Marquardt (@ajlobster) October 31, 2017
Source: Moviefone
