Charlie Brooker and Netflix’s decision to push ahead with the interactive Black Mirror movie, Bandersnatch, impacted the timeline for the fifth proper season of the dark anthology series. Here’s what Brooker and his co-showrunner had to say about it.
While chatting to The Hollywood Reporter, Black Mirror boss Brooker admitted that getting the choice-laden Bandersnatch ready for broadcast took longer than expected:
“We knew going into it that it would be difficult and challenging and more complicated than a normal film that we would do. Even then, we underestimated. As the story expanded, I like to say that the story got longer and it got wider. So the whole thing started expanding a bit like an inflatable life raft in a small room. […] I think it’s fair to say that it took us more time and effort than we had initially anticipated.’”
Co-showrunner Annabel Jones added this, mentioning that season 5 had to take a backseat:
“There’s so much content [in Bandersnatch] and not reflected in the content is the craftsmanship, and what you have to take out to make the world exist — or feel as if it does exist in one cohesive world. So it did take an enormous amount of time and as a result, then season five sort of gets shifted back a little bit. But this is such a huge, interesting new opportunity for Netflix that we’re a part of. And there is so much fun to be had with it. That’s one thing that I hope people take away from it: I hope that you just enjoy the experience.”
We don’t have a release date for Black Mirror season 5 as of yet, but we’ll be sure to keep you updated as we hear more.