Netflix has given a straight-to-series order for an adaptation of what many consider to be one of the greatest graphic novels of all time, Charles Burns’ Black Hole. The project is also being developed by New Regency, with Plan B and Erin Levy (Good American Family) on board as executive producers.
I Saw The TV Glow filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun will write and direct.
Originally published as a 12-issue comic book series back in 1995, Black Hole surged in popularity when it was collected in graphic novel form in 2005. The '70s-set story focuses on a group of teenagers who undergo bizarre physical mutations after contracting a sexually-transmitted disease known as "The Bug."
The official logline reads: "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."
There have been a number of previous attempts to adapt Black Hole for the screen, including a 2006 movie that had Alexandre Aja set to direct, with Neil Gaiman and Pulp Fiction co-writer Roger Avary attached to adapt the screenplay for Paramount Pictures, MTV Films, and Plan B. David Fincher boarded the project in 2008, before leaving to focus on his adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The project was then revived in 2018 with Rick Famuyiwa attached to write and direct, but nothing ever came of it.
Burns explained how he came up with the idea for the story during a 2017 interview with Vulture.
"I was doing some shorter stories that kinda dealt with the whole idea of a disease or plague, this kind of teen plague. The idea was kinda bouncing around in my head for a while. For a while, I had a syndicated weekly comic strip, and I had a story that kind of touches on that whole idea of the plague, or teenagers with some disease that’s manifesting itself. I think it was just something that I realized I had been contemplating, thinking about, and wanted to get into it, and dig deeper."
Any Black Hole fans out there? What do you make of this news? Let us know in the comments section.