‘Black Mirror’ To Return As Netflix Series?
Charlie Brooker’s U.K. dystopian drama, Black Mirror, may be returning as a Netflix series.
Total Film reports that the show is reportedly heading back into production, with Netflix looking to finance a new season of the series. According to the Radio Times, who originally broke the story, the streaming company is understood to have agreed terms with Brooker and his independent production company, House of Tomorrow. Negotiations started in May and have apparently progressed.
Described as The Twilight Zone for the digital age, Black Mirror shows the collapse of contemporary society in an all-too familiar future where technology has divided and conquered mankind. So far, Channel 4 has aired two, three-part series and a Christmas special. If you haven’t seen these yet, be warned, minor spoilers lay ahead.
Netflix — best known for original shows like House of Cards and Orange Is The New Black — has already acquired the rights to the back catalogue, one that has become hugely popular in the U.S. since its arrival on the streaming service. However, the show may not vanish from Channel 4 schedules just yet, with the U.K. broadcaster understood to have a “first-look option” on any future episodes.
Brooker is currently writing for a new season and has a highly acclaimed resume. As well as Black Mirror, he wrote Dead Set, a Big Brother horror spoof where a zombie invasion makes the show a little more interesting. He also has writing credits on The 11 O’Clock Show — the comedy satire that introduced the world to Ali G and Ricky Gervais — and Nathan Barley, which he co-wrote with Chris Morris. He also worked with Morris on the controversial Brass Eye.
With Black Mirror, Brooker entered edgier territory by utilizing something we all take for granted — technology. “The National Anthem” showed a darker side to social media when the Prime Minister is forced — before a judgmental, trolling world — to have sex with a pig to save a royal hostage, “Be Right Back” treads the realm of life and death when a widow discovers she can bring her deceased husband back as a real life avatar, and “The Entire History Of You” shows how society would cope with their every sight and thought recorded to paranoid memory, with the option to replay it back for positive or negative effect. This episode has been potentially optioned for a movie by Robert Downey, Jr.
The Christmas special, “White Christmas,” the last episode to air, featured Jon Hamm (Mad Men) in a dark future where people could “block” people in real life, just like on Twitter and Facebook. The episode garnered 2 million views. Hamm was one of several guest stars throughout the series, which also included Hayley Atwell, Tony Kebbell, and Rory Kinnear.
If Netflix do acquire Black Mirror, it will be the latest in a line of online streaming services to sign exclusive U.K. talent. Netflix themselves have been busy, by signing up the team behind BBC’s The Blue Planet. They are also helming royal drama, The Crown, which is set to cost £50 million. Their online rival, Amazon, signed up former Top Gear presenters Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond, and James May earlier this year, as well as reviving Victorian crime drama Ripper Street, which was dropped by the BBC.
[Images – Channel 4]
