A new series of “Black Mirror” is in preparation at Netflix, Variety can reveal.
It’s been almost three years since Season 5 of the dystopian drama premiered on the streaming service in June 2019, but sources say a new ‘Black Mirror’ anthology series is in the works and casting is underway. .
While details on specific stories are kept under lock and key, Variety understands that Season 6 will have more episodes than Season 5, which only had three episodes and featured Andrew Scott, Anthony Mackie, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Topher Grace, and Miley Cyrus.
A source close to the production tells Variety that the final season has an even more cinematic reach, with each episode treated as an individual film. This is of course in line with the later seasons of “Black Mirror”, where episodes were typically over 60 minutes long and had incredibly high production values.
The new season of “Black Mirror” is the first to emerge since creator Charlie Brooker and his creative partner Annabel Jones left their production company House of Tomorrow, which was backed by Endemol Shine Group, in January 2020. not long before the pair settled under the new production banner Broke and Bones, and Netflix quickly invested in the company through a mega deal in which it acquires parts of the business on a period of five years, for an amount of up to $100 million.
When Brooker and Jones left House of Tomorrow, however, the rights to “Black Mirror” remained with parent company Endemol Shine Group, which was ultimately acquired by Banijay Group in the summer of 2020. This arrangement effectively prevented Brooker and Jones to produce more seasons for Netflix until a deal was struck with Banijay, and fans feared that would be the end of the series.
Brooker himself cast doubt on the future of ‘Black Mirror’ two years ago, telling Britain’s Radio Times magazine at the height of the pandemic that: ‘At the moment I don’t know what stomach there is. would have for stories about collapsing societies, so I’m not working on any of them. I’m kind of wanting to brush up on my comic book skills, so I wrote scripts aimed at making me laugh.
Obviously, an agreement been eventually reached, and Banijay Rights – the distribution arm of the company that owns both the format and finished tape rights to “Black Mirror” – licensed its hit show to Netflix.
Brooker has kept a relatively low profile since joining the Netflix fold. Known for his concise BBC review formats “Weekly Wipe” and “Screenwipe,” Brooker applied a similar twist to his Netflix review of the year show “Death to 2020,” which appealed to a stable of celebrities. to add star power and deliver The Brooker Jokes themselves. Netflix followed up last year with a “Death to 2021” special. Between that time, he also produced the special “Attack of the Hollywood Clichés!”
In February, the streamer debuted Brooker’s clever animated interactive short, “Cat Burglar,” which asked viewers to answer trivial questions to advance the story of a cat named Rowdy who attempts to steal food. art in a museum. The show was a tribute to cartoonist Tex Avery, who helped create iconic cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.
Yet two years after joining Netflix, Brooker is still virtually synonymous with “Black Mirror,” and it makes sense the streamer would want him back on the platform.
Although the show started life on UK broadcaster Channel 4, where it aired for two seasons, the format caused a worldwide stir on Netflix with big-budget, celebrity-laden episodes such as “San Junipero” and “USS Callister” taking the dark heart of the show to dizzying heights and picking up a cornucopia of awards in the process.
Netflix and Banijay Rights declined to comment for this story.