Black Mirror Showrunner Says There Has To Be A Good Reason For A Bandersnatch Sequel

In an interview with TVLine, Black Mirror creator and showrunner Charlie Brooker spoke about the possibility of a sequel to the interactive episode Bandersnatch, the branches of story that can’t be accessed and more. Here are highlights:

On if he has an idea for a sequel: “I can think of many things things you could do — maaaaany things you could do, and approaches you could take. But the key is you need to find a good reason to be doing it like that. This is not anything new, but the fact that it’s on Netflix is new. But you’d have to have a good reason, just as if you were doing a musical, for this to be the core of it.”

On if there’s a specific number of decisions to unlock secret endings: “I did say, “Oh, can we put the Konami code in?” at one point, but it was not possible. The closest we get is there is an Easter egg in the form of a downloadable bit of software. And I did want to put in at one point a thing where if you dialed 999, which is the number for the emergency service in Britain, you got the police, and if you dialed 911, I wanted an American cop to answer. But once you start opening that Pandora’s Box, you’re f–ked. Oh, there was one other thing I wanted to do: There’s a bit where he gets a VHS tape and watches a documentary. I wanted you to choose which tape to put on and if you chose the film you could watch the entire thing from beginning to end, in real time. Like, we’d license Guns of Navarone. [Laughs] But we didn’t, sadly, get a chance to do that.”

On the Easter Egg that can’t be accessed: “People found stuff much quicker than we expected. Like, that Easter egg with the downloadable bit of software, we thought someone might find that after a couple of weeks, and it was probably within two hours. ‘Hey, I got this and put it into an emulator…!” But there is one bit you can’t find because by accident you can no longer access it. We simplified something, and it meant there was a chunk of video we mixed even though it became pointless because no one would ever see it! That’s how dedicated we are to the cause.”