Jackson Lee Davis/Netflix
The creators of "Stranger Things."
- "Stranger Things" was rejected at least 15 times before it was picked by Netflix in 2015, and became a cultural phenomenon.
- The original pitch for the TV series - and a book about the making of the show - explain how the creators ultimately hooked Netflix on their eerie coming-of-age story.
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Before "Stranger Things" was a hit Netflix original, it was just another TV pitch that no network wanted to touch.
Many of the elements that made "Stranger Things" a cultural phenomenon when it launched in 2016 - its 1980s nostalgia and dark coming-of-age story - worked against the creators when they were pitching the show to companies in Hollywood.
"A lot of the concerns were based on the fact that this is a show about kids, but it's not a kids' show," Matt Duffer, who created the show with his brother, Ross, said in a book about the making of the series, called, "Stranger Things: Worlds Turned Upside Down." "The other big thing was that no one wanted a show set in the 1980s."
The idea for "Stranger Things" was rejected 15-20 times, according to the book.
There were many things that the original pitch for the TV show absolutely nailed, however. The look book - available online - that the Duffers used alongside the pilot script to shop the series around Hollywood shows how the creators hooked Netflix executives on a feeling of childhood and innocence.
"The Duffers were great at capturing a feeling," Matt Thunell, the content-development exec at Netflix who discovered "Stranger Things," said in the book. "You really feel something on the page. You feel like you did when you were a child. You feel what it was like to grow up, to be innocent, to have your whole life in front of you."
Netflix ordered the series in April 2015, shortly after hearing the pitch.