Stranger Things' Massive Season 3 Battle Was Shot In A Still-Open Mall

This winter, Netflix's zeitgeist-defining series "Stranger Things" will come to an end after nearly a decade of sci-fi horror adventures in the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana. The show follows the ensemble cast experiencing surreal, extraordinary circumstances beginning in the autumn of 1983, with each season jumping ahead roughly a year. "Stranger Things" Season 3, which premiered during the 2019 Fourth of July weekend, is set during the 1985 summer vacation, where all the kids are enjoying their break from school, with much of the season's action taking place within the recently opened Starcourt Mall.

As was typical in the '80s, Starcourt Mall became the major hangout place for the local teens in Hawkins. In particular, Steve Harrington (Joe Keery) works at the mall's ice cream parlor, Scoops Ahoy, alongside newcomer Robin Buckley (Maya Hawke), both of whom are at the center of one of Season 3's most memorable subplots. The two co-workers become best friends following a perilous journey within the mall's secret underground Russian lab, where they are accompanied by Dustin Henderson (Gaten Matarazzo) and Erica Sinclair (Priah Ferguson). Season 3 culminates in an epic climax, which was filmed at the Gwinnett Place Mall – a real place in Duluth, Georgia.

In "Chapter Eight: The Battle of Starcourt," the monstrous Mind Flayer goes berserk inside the complex, putting many of the younger characters of "Stranger Things" in the most heart-wrenching battle of their lives up to that point. Billy Hargrove (Dacre Montgomery), possessed by the Mind Flayer, clashes with Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), who uses her abilities to remind him of his humanity, leading him to sacrifice his life to rescue the rest of the gang. Simultaneously, Chief Jim Hopper (David Harbour) seemingly becomes a victim of the explosion within the mall.

Production on "Stranger Things" Season 3 mostly took place in the state of Georgia in the spring of 2018. The Gwinnett Place Mall was used as a stand-in for the Starcourt, particularly for the climactic battle in the season finale. According to "Stranger Things" location manager Tony Holley (via SFX Magazine), the production team initially hoped to find a closed-down shopping mall to shoot much of the Starcourt sequences at. However, Holley acknowledged that, given the ever-growing nature of the city of Atlanta, there were no closed-down malls at the time. "The one we're shooting at is about 70% shut down," Holley explained. "We have essentially 25% of the mall to work with."

Chris Trujillo, production designer for "Stranger Things," revealed that filming at Gwinnett Place Mall, which was slowly closing at the time, had a whole wing that fit the team's creative vision architecturally. "We've been working on it for eight weeks or so," Trujillo shared. "We completely gutted it and restored all the facades and interiors of the stores, as well as the food court and its fountains. It's epic." 

The real-life mall opened in 1984, but is unfortunately closed today. The Urban Redevelopment Agency of Gwinnett County completed the purchase of the 39-acre site of the mall in April 2021. As of October 2025, the agency is expected to complete the purchase of the former Sears site within the mall.