The great thing about Netflix’s sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror is that each episode has the scope and panache of a cinematic production. Though these mini-films are made with a fraction of the budget of a blockbuster movie, the ideas on show are easily worthy of being put up on the silver screen. It’s no surprise, then, that Hollywood has come a-knocking several times.
That’s what producer Annabel Jones revealed while chatting with Collider at this weekend’s New York Comic-Con. However, she seemed to dismiss the idea, explaining that she and her team are happy with what they’re doing at the moment.
“We have [been approached] yes, flatteringly a few times. But in our maybe pretentious heads we sort of feel we’re already making a film, you know? They’re certainly structured like films and they’re all independent, so I don’t really feel the need to do that. The story is the interesting thing, not necessarily the size of the screen on which it’s played out.”
Creator Charlie Brooker was also on hand to support Jones’ view on the topic of a Black Mirror movie. He cited the much easier – though possibly more stressful – process of producing a TV series compared to a major motion picture, as the latter would have to go through so many different stages before making it to cinemas.
“And plus we don’t have the development hell that all movies end up going through. We have the opposite problem in a way, we have breakneck speed and we have to make six films a year effectively, is the way we look at it—which is a good problem to have. If a story idea presented itself that required like a $300 million budget and a two-hour runtime then maybe, but otherwise we do feel like we’re making a mini film festival with each season. So it’s hard to see what would make us stop doing that.”
This isn’t the first we’ve heard about a potential Black Mirror film. A few years ago, Robert Downey Jr. snapped up the rights to adapt one episode as a movie: season 1’s “The Entire History of You,” starring Fantastic Four‘s Toby Kebbell and Doctor Who‘s Jodie Whittaker as a couple living with memory-recording implants. Seeing as we’ve heard nothing about the project for a while, though, it’s likely that it’s stuck in “the development hell” that Brooker talks about.
An official date has yet to be revealed, but Black Mirror season 4 is expected to land on the streaming service this December.