Netflix Brings on ‘I Saw the TV Glow’ Filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun to Adapt Disturbing Graphic Novel ‘Black Hole’
Jane Schoenbrun is headed back into the opaque. The visionary filmmaker behind I Saw the TV Glow and We’re All Going to the World’s Fair is officially adapting Charles Burns’ cult graphic novel Black Hole for Netflix.
A Match Made in Body Horror Heaven
Deadline reports that Schoenbrun will write and direct the straight-to-series adaptation, produced by New Regency and Plan B Entertainment (Brad Pitt’s banner). The project reimagines Burns’ grim 1970s nightmare — a sexually transmitted plague that mutates teens into literal monsters — for the streaming era.
That premise is pure Schoenbrun: the merging of identity crisis, queer transformation, and media-warped adolescence. If World’s Fair examined the horror of living online and TV Glow trapped its heroes inside nostalgia’s haunted broadcast signal, Black Hole gives them a disease that turns self-discovery into a waking mutation. As a queer person, I’m both ready and absolutely not.
Official synopsis: “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.”
Since premiering I Saw the TV Glow at Sundance, where our Chad Collins awarded the film 5 stars, Schoenbrun has become one of genre’s most discussed new auteurs. Their work translates emotional dysphoria into physical horror, making them a perfect fit for Burns’ grotesque coming-of-age story.
If the series stays true to its ink-black aesthetic source material and suburban surrealism, expect something closer to Ginger Snaps or Cronenberg’s The Fly than typical Netflix horror. Schoenbrun’s collaborators are said to be approaching the project as a “psychosexual mood piece” rather than a straightforward adaptation.
Burns’ original Black Hole was serialized from 1995 to 2005, eventually becoming a touchstone of underground comics. It’s been through development hell before — at one point David Fincher was attached to direct a feature version, followed by Rick Famuyiwa — but none ever made it past early development. Netflix’s direct-to-series order finally breaks the curse.
No cast or release window has been announced, but with Schoenbrun steering the project, Black Hole could become Netflix’s most daring genre experiment since The OA. Expect a hallucinatory blend of teen dread, intimacy, and body horror that feels rudely personal.
Categorized: News
