Charlie Brooker thought a choose-your-own-adventure Black Mirror was a bad idea
Interactive episode Bandersnatch has been blowing people’s minds, but its writer wasn’t that keen at first…
Netflix’s secretive Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch seems to have been a smash hit, with fans desperately trying to reveal all the different choices and endings in the choose-your-own adventure story since its release on the 28th December.
However, Black Mirror creator and writer Charlie Brooker wasn’t so keen on the idea when Netflix first presented it to him, cutting the Video-On-Demand service off shortly.
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“No f***ing way,” the screenwriter recalled replying (via Variety) – and series co-creator Annabel Jones wasn’t too sure about the idea either.
“To me, they always felt a bit gimmicky,” she said of the choose-your-own-adventure style – until the pair started discussing plans for the next series in early 2017, and an idea popped up that was just so perfect for the format Netflix had suggested.
“At that point, it was pretty simple,” recalled Brooker – though creating the storyline, which sees Stefan (Fionn Whitehead) try to create a choose-your-own adventure computer game from an old book at the expense of his mental health proved anything but simple.
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“What we were trying to do was what Stefan was trying to do,” he said. “There were many points where we felt it was driving us crazy.”
“It kept expanding, even when we were in pre-production,” Brooker added. “We deliberately pushed what was going to be possible.”
In the end, though, it seems to have all worked out for the Black Mirror and Netflix teams. Clearly, Brooker ended up making the right choice after all.
Black Mirror: Bandersnatch is streaming on Netflix now
