Can’t get enough Black Mirror? Well, you’re in luck, because Netflix recently renewed the popular techno-thriller series for a fifth season, according to Deadline.
Less than three months after season 4 (six episodes in total) became available to stream on Netflix, the official Black Mirror Twitter account revealed the plan by tweeting out a little teaser video — see below — which ends with the phrase “Be Right Back,” which is both an allusion to future plans and a callback to the first episode of season 2.
The future will be brighter than ever. pic.twitter.com/slVeg3VPd7
— Black Mirror (@blackmirror) March 5, 2018
As Black Mirror has become something of a hit thanks to its anthological nature — each episode is a self-contained story, which means you don’t have to worry about spoilers — and its willingness to imagine horrific dystopian futures, we can’t say we’re surprised by the news. The best episodes (of the 19 that have aired so far) are both touching and terrifying, considering the potential negative effects of our dependence upon various technologies.
The first two seasons of Black Mirror, created originally by British humorist and writer Charlie Brooker, were produced by Zeppotron (just three episodes each) on a modest budget and aired on the BBC’s Channel 4. Two years later, Netflix commissioned 12 more episodes over two seasons and outbid Channel 4 for the distribution rights. While the first two seasons did include some notable cast members, including Hayley Atwell (Agent Carter), Domhnhall Gleeson (Ex Machina), and a 22-year-old Daniel Kaluuya (Get Out), the series’ production value and cast both took off once Netflix was handling the financials.
Seasons 3 and 4 are loaded with big names (Benedict Wong, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jerome Flynt), and some of the episodes (see: Metalhead and U.S.S. Callister) feel like they could be spun off into their own shows. Plus, the latter seasons include episodes (San Junipero, Hang The DJ) which are a little more optimistic and a little less fatalist than most. If you like horror and thrillers, they are all worth checking out either way.
Netflix hasn’t yet released any further information about season 5. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled and your cursor over that refresh button because we will continue to update this article with any new details.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?