Netflix Adapts Charles Burns’ BLACK HOLE With Jane Schoenbrun at the Helm

Netflix Adapts Charles Burns’ BLACK HOLE With Jane Schoenbrun at the Helm

Netflix Turns Charles Burns’ Black Hole Into a Series From 

I Saw the TV Glow Director Jane Schoenbrun

Netflix is taking a deep dive into one of horror’s most haunting graphic novels. Per The Hollywood Reporter, the streamer has officially ordered a straight-to-series adaptation of Charles Burns’ cult classic Black Hole, with filmmaker Jane Schoenbrun (I Saw the TV Glow) set to write, direct, and executive produce.

First published between 1995 and 2005, Black Hole follows a group of Seattle teenagers who contract a sexually transmitted “bug” that mutates their bodies in disturbing ways. The virus—part disease, part curse—triggers grotesque transformations that leave its victims exiled from society and forced to navigate adolescence on the fringes. Burns’ original work became a touchstone of body-horror literature, blending psychological unease, sexual awakening, and suburban alienation into a nightmarish reflection of youth culture.

For Schoenbrun, whose surreal, identity-driven horror films (We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, I Saw the TV Glow) have redefined queer and emotional storytelling in genre cinema, Black Hole is a natural fit. Her work has consistently explored the porous borders between the digital and the physical, the self and the other. Bringing that sensibility to Burns’ already-distorted world suggests the upcoming series will lean into atmosphere and transformation over traditional scares.

Netflix’s order bypasses the pilot stage, fast-tracking the project into full-series production—an increasingly rare vote of confidence for an original horror property. While casting details remain under wraps, the creative pairing of Burns’ visual paranoia and Schoenbrun’s dreamlike storytelling could yield one of the streamer’s most ambitious genre efforts since The Haunting of Hill House or Brand New Cherry Flavor.

In Black Hole, the horror isn’t just the body mutating—it’s what comes after. The shame, the isolation, the need to belong when your reflection no longer matches the person inside. That blend of grotesque and lyrical has long defined Schoenbrun’s filmmaking—and here, it might find its most potent outlet yet.