The return of New Coke? Stranger things have happened.
Coca-Cola is bringing back the infamous and widely-hated drink for a limited time as part of a partnership with the Netflix series Stranger Things, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
About 500,000 cans of New Coke will be made available, Variety reports, after a six-month process that involved digging up the old formula and faithfully recreating the can design. Matt and Ross Duffer, the creators of the show, evidently brought up the idea of a New Coke return as a joke during a meeting with Netflix — but everyone else legitimately thought it was a good idea.
Barry Smyth, Netflix’s head of partnership marketing, told The New York Times that at a 2017 meeting, "We asked the question, ‘What would really blow it out of the water for this campaign?’ They jokingly said, 'Bring back New Coke.' They thought it was a joke. We took it as a brief." Netflix approached Coke with the idea.
Beyond this Thursday, Stranger Things-themed vending machines will give out free cans of New Coke in some select cities, beginning in New York on May 23. Stranger Things's third season hits Netflix on July 4.
-
What do heatwaves mean for Scandinavia?Under the Radar A record-breaking run of sweltering days and tropical nights is changing the way people – and animals – live in typically cool Nordic countries
-
August 17 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday’s political cartoons include voting rights of felons, misdirection on the way to the Alaska summit, and more
-
5 crime-ridden cartoons about National Guard deployment in DCCartoons Artists take on the crime of littering, the real criminals in DC, and more
-
Trump said to seek government stake in IntelSpeed Read The president and Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan reportedly discussed the proposal at a recent meeting
-
US to take 15% cut of AI chip sales to ChinaSpeed Read Nvidia and AMD will pay the Trump administration 15% of their revenue from selling artificial intelligence chips to China
-
NFL gets ESPN stake in deal with DisneySpeed Read The deal gives the NFL a 10% stake in Disney's ESPN sports empire and gives ESPN ownership of NFL Network
-
Samsung to make Tesla chips in $16.5B dealSpeed Read Tesla has signed a deal to get its next-generation chips from Samsung
-
FCC greenlights $8B Paramount-Skydance mergerSpeed Read The Federal Communications Commission will allow Paramount to merge with the Hollywood studio Skydance
-
Tesla reports plummeting profitsSpeed Read The company may soon face more problems with the expiration of federal electric vehicle tax credits
-
Dollar faces historic slump as stocks hit new highSpeed Read While stocks have recovered post-Trump tariffs, the dollar has weakened more than 10% this year
-
Economists fear US inflation data less reliablespeed read The Labor Department is collecting less data for its consumer price index due to staffing shortages
