Charlie Brooker has been chatting about his acclaimed Netflix anthology series in a new book, Inside Black Mirror, and he’s revealed that he’s open to producing follow-up episodes in the future…
Brooker entertained the possibility of a sequel to White Bear, his 2013 episode about a woman trapped in a punishment loop (something she discovers at the close of the story).
“That was something we discussed at the time, as a potential expansion of the story,” he explained. “What if she becomes aware that this is going on, and starts rebelling against it?”
A follow-up to San Junipero, the decidedly optimistic, critically-adored mini movie starring Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Mackenzie Davis, is, however, off the cards.
“I wouldn’t necessarily want to revisit those characters, because we’re very happy with where they ended up and their story,” Brooker said. “But that’s not to say that we couldn’t revisit that world, if there was a compelling reason to do so.”
“There’s certain stories we’ve done that lend themselves to either continuing on with the characters or, more often it tends to be, you could do another story with that world as a backdrop.”
Brooker was also keen on the mash-up episodes he’s written, like Black Museum and White Christmas, and would like to revisit the format. “Sometimes, I’ve got an idea for a story and it’s a hook… and it’s like 15 minutes of story and I can’t work out how to make that a bigger story,” he explained.
“It’s like side two of Abbey Road. Not that I’m comparing us to the Beatles! But it’s like when the Beatles had these fragments that didn’t necessarily add up to a full song. You wouldn’t want to inflate [an idea] beyond its lifespan, but if there’s a way to link them together, they can become more than the sum of their parts.
“So if you look at an episode like ‘Black Museum’, that consists of three separate stories – they actually build on each other… so I’ve got quite a few ideas of that nature and I would like to, at some point, revisit the portmanteau format.”