Charles Burns‘s acclaimed Black Hole is closer than ever to getting a screen adaptation, after Netflix won a competitive bidding war for a new TV series based on the comic. Hailing from I Saw the TV Glow writer/director Jane Schoenbrun, Black Hole has a straight-to-series commitment. It marks Schoenbrun’s first foray into television after making two of the most beloved horror films of the decade.
Originally published over the course of a decade between 1995 and 2005, Black Hole follows a cast of teenagers who contract a sexually transmitted disease that can literally transform sufferers into monsters.
Black Hole has been in and out of development for years as a feature film, with big-name directors like David Fincher (The Social Network), Alexandre Aja (Crawl), and Rick Famuyiwa (Dope) attached. Plan B, who had been financially backing the Famuyiwa version of the movie, is still attached to Schoenbrun’s adaptation. Per THR, Schoenbrun will be credited as the creator, writer, and director of Black Hole. In addition to Plan B, executive producers will include Erin Levy; New Regency’s Yariv Milchan, Arnon Milchan, Natalie Lehmann and Laura Delahaye; and Burns.
Given that Black Hole is a teen-driven period piece (it’s set in the 1970s) with sci-fi elements and wild monster designs, it’s not difficult to draw a line between it and Netflix’s signature series Stranger Things, which is wrapping up in January. If Netflix could recapture a little bit of that zeitgeist, it would give Schoenbrun a real chance to explore Burns’s world.
Here’s Netflix’s official synopsis, per The Hollywood Reporter, who broke the news: “There’s an old myth that haunts the seemingly perfect small town of Roosevelt: If you have sex too young, you’ll contract the ‘bug,’ a virus that literally turns you into a ‘monster’ from your worst nightmares. Absurd, right? That’s what Chris always assumed, until, after one reckless night at the beginning of senior year, she finds herself infected. Now she’ll be cast out to the woods to live with the other infected, where a chilling, new threat emerges: a serial killer who’s hunting them one by one.”
No casting or release date was announced for Black Hole, but a straight-to-series commitment makes it feel more likely to actually materialize.
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