Dope director Rick Famuyiwa signs on for Black Hole adaptation

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Over a span of ten years, Charles Burns wrote and illustrated a twelve issue comic book series titled BLACK HOLE, telling a story that followed 

a group of high schoolers who contract a mysterious, apparently sexually transmitted disease known as "the Bug.” As the syndrome causes physical mutations, turning the teens into something else, the community is left to deal with the fallout.

The twelve issues were collected in graphic novel form in 2005, and a cinematic adaptation of the story has been in development hell ever since. In 2006, it was announced that Alexandre Aja would be directing BLACK HOLE, working from a screenplay by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman. Aja soon moved on, and when David Fincher signed on to direct the film in 2008, Avary and Gaiman also left the project, not interested in going through an arduous process with the new director. Fincher remained attached to BLACK HOLE for several years, but eventually let it slip out of his grasp.

The project now has a new shot at life, as New Regency and Plan B have brought on Rick Famuyiwa to write and direct the adaptation.

Famuyiwa's credits include THE WOOD, BROWN SUGAR, OUR FAMILY WEDDING, and the highly acclaimed 2015 coming-of-age film DOPE (pictured). I honestly haven't seen a single one of those and am most familiar with Famuyiwa from when he left the DC Comics movie THE FLASH over creative differences back in 2016, but I hope he will have better luck getting BLACK HOLE together than his predecessors did.

If you'd like to pick up a copy of the BLACK HOLE graphic novel, it's available on Amazon.