Black Mirror, the British sci-fi anthology that you should have already blown through on Netflix, could be hopping across the pond for an American spin.
Speaking at a conference, prodcers Cris Abrego and Charlie Corwin of Endemol Shine North America told the audience that a U.S. version of the breakout series in in the works.
Well, what he actually said was “there is a plan”, but wouldn’t elaborate further.
From Variety:
“We’re going to take every advantage of that to bring amazing shows from around the world to American audiences,” said Corwin. Examples include Shine’s crime drama for FX, “The Bridge,” and Fox’s “Gracepoint,” a rendition of U.K. series “Broadchurch.”
Neither of those Yank adaptations were commercially successful, but that hasn’t deterred Endemol Shine from pursuing other formats. With the heat that “Black Mirror” generated simply from word of mouth on Netflix, a U.S. version was all but inevitable.
Black Mirror hit Netflix last month and almost instantly took over water cooler conversation. Of course that water cooler conversation was probably done in whispers, as the first episode of the series involves the British PM being forced to screw a pig on live television. It would be interesting to see how the show morphs when translated for an American audience. Hopefully not a lot, as Black Mirror‘s original creator Charlie Booker has said in the past that he would be involved in any American spin-off.
Black Mirror is kind of hard to explain, but the best way to do it is to call it a sci-fi anthology – like a modern-day Twilight Zone. Every episode is different – completely untethered from the previous one – except they all seem to explore common themes: technology, media, voyeurism, the future, to name a handful.
As with most great things from other countries that receive the inevitable red, white, and blue makeover, the sentiment is the same: Don’t fuck it up.