Intrepid Redditor Radulno was browsing Netflix Wednesday morning when they noticed a show page for Black Mirror: Bandersnatch, the previously semi-unconfirmed Black Mirror project that might be coming Dec. 28. It’s still shrouded in mystery, but now we know it’s definitely something. A 90-minute movie, apparently. Netflix declined TV Guide’s request to elaborate further, so we’re still in the realm of speculation here.
The page on Netflix’s website for now is just a landing page with no video and a very minimal description — “Be right back.” — which is itself a reference to the title one of the dystopian sci-fi anthology’s finest episodes. There’s a photo grid with stills from other episodes. Taken together, the content on the page seems to suggest that Bandersnatch will be some kind of remix of previous Black Mirror stories.
The mobile version of the page just shows Black Mirror‘s “loading” graphic and discloses that the movie will come out in 2018 and be an hour and thirty minutes (which will make it eligible to compete for the TV movie Emmy next year after all).
Fans speculate that Bandersnatch will be a choose-your-own-adventure interactive experience, since Bloomberg reported earlier this year that there was an interactive Black Mirror in the works, and the title Bandersnatch is probably a reference to a legendarily unproduced 1984 computer game. The show was spotted filming an ’80s-set decorated Christmas episode in London earlier this year.
Poster for ‘Bandersnatch’ the game, a project which never saw the light of day – the game was developed in 1984, the same year ‘Bandersnatch’ the Black Mirror episode takes place (which we know as a set photo shows Bob Marley’s ‘Legend’ at #1 on the charts inside a record store) pic.twitter.com/SlzbERQHuR
— Kezia Abigail (@xiurongg) November 26, 2018
A since-deleted post on a verified Netflix account maybe accidentally, maybe intentionally disclosed the Bandersnatch title and a Dec. 28 premiere date.
All this circumstantial evidence points to a choose-your-own-adventure Black Mirror Christmas special coming to Netflix in a week or so. Stay chuned, as they say in England.
This seems to be a special rather than the premiere of Season 5, which will feature Miley Cyrus and is probably coming in 2019. Black Mirror previously produced a holiday special in 2014 called “White Christmas” with Jon Hamm which you can stream right now.