Paul Giamatti in ‘Black Mirror’ season 7. (Nick Wall/Netflix)
Black Mirror has been renewed for season 8 at Netflix.
The long-running dystopian anthology series is returning for an eighth season, the streamer announced on Friday. Its creator, Charlie Brooker, is currently writing the new season and teased what fans can expect.
“Black Mirror will return, and hopefully it’ll be more Black Mirror than ever,” Brooker told Netflix’s Tudum.
As for the future of the show, Brooker said, “Well, luckily it does have a future, so I can confirm that Black Mirror will return, just in time for reality to catch up with it. So, that’s exciting. That chunk of my brain has already been activated and is whirring away.”
Brooker said that putting a season of TV together is like creating an album. He was then asked what kind of tune season 8 will be.
“It’s a useful thought experiment when approaching a new story. I’ll often think of, ‘Well, what haven’t we done yet, and what tone am I looking for? … Where does this track come on the album, and what musical direction are we going to go into?'” Brooker said. “We’ll find out. Very unlikely you’ll ever see a Black Mirror hoedown.”
There is currently no word on when fans can expect to see season 8 of Black Mirror arrive on Netflix or who will appear in the new episodes.
Blake Lively in New York City, April 29, 2025, and Justin Baldoni in New York City, Aug. 8, 2024. (Getty Images)
A federal judge in New York has formally ended Justin Baldoni‘s $400 million counterclaim against his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively.
Judge Lewis Liman entered a final judgment on Oct. 31, after dismissing the suit in June.
Baldoni is able to appeal the judge’s ruling.
Baldoni and Lively have been locked in a bitter legal dispute since December 2024, when Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of the film, which he also directed.
Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni on Dec. 31, 2024, reiterating the claims made in her earlier complaint and alleging Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios had waged a retaliatory smear campaign against her. That same day, Baldoni filed a lawsuit against The New York Times, which had published a report outlining the claims detailed in Lively’s earlier complaint, alleging libel and false light invasion of privacy.
Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios filed a countersuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist, Leslie Sloane, weeks later, alleging civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.
In June of this year, Liman granted Lively’s motion to dismiss Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios’ countersuit against her. The judge also dismissed Baldoni’s defamation suit against the Times.
At the time, Liman wrote in his opinion that Baldoni’s lawsuit hinged on claims that Lively “stole the film from Baldoni and Wayfarer, threatening to refuse to promote the film and attack Baldoni and Wayfarer in the press if the Wayfarer Parties did not agree to grant her, rather than Wayfarer, control over and credit for the film” and that “Lively, Sloane, Reynolds, and the Times spread a false narrative that Baldoni committed sexual misconduct towards Lively and the Wayfarer Parties then engaged in a smear campaign to ruin her reputation.”
“Regardless of the propriety of these actions, they do not constitute civil extortion under California law,” Liman wrote, adding that “the Wayfarer Parties have not adequately alleged that Lively’s threats were wrongful extortion rather than legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions” and had “not shown that some of Lively’s allegedly extortionate acts damaged them.”
Two weeks later, on June 24, Baldoni decided not to amend his claims against Lively, Reynolds, Sloane and the Times.
In a statement at the time, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said, “Instead of revising the existing claims, our clients will be pursuing additional legal options that are available to us.”
“The Court’s decision on the motion to dismiss has no effect whatsoever on the truth that there was no harassment nor any smear campaign, and it does not in any way affect our vigorous defense against Ms. Lively’s claims,” Freedman continued, calling Lively’s allegations “baseless.”
Lively’s spokesperson responded to Baldoni’s decision at the time, saying in a statement, “The Court dismissed the frivolous $400 million Baldoni-Wayfarer lawsuit in its entirety.”
They added, “In the days that followed, Baldoni’s lawyer said the judge’s decision to dismiss their case was not a big deal as they promised to amend and refile it. As per usual, that was not true. The Court’s dismissal of Baldoni’s sham lawsuit was a total victory after all.”
Reached for comment on Monday, a Times spokesperson directed ABC News to its earlier statement in June, following Liman’s dismissal of Baldoni’s defamation case against the outlet. “We are grateful to the court for seeing the lawsuit for what it was: a meritless attempt to stifle honest reporting,” the spokesperson said.
“Our journalists went out and covered carefully and fairly a story of public importance, and the court recognized that the law is designed to protect just that sort of journalism,” they continued. “We will continue to stand up in court for our journalism and for our journalists when their work comes under attack.”
Lively’s case against Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios is still expected to go to trial in March next year.
ABC News reached out to Baldoni’s team, who did not issue any further comment.
ABC News has also reached out to Lively’s team for comment.
David Harbour as Jim Hopper and Millie Bobby Brown as Eleven in the finale of ‘Stranger Things’ season 5. (Netflix)
It’s time to say goodbye to Stranger Things.
Netflix released the trailer for last episode of the fifth and final season of its hit sci-fi series on Tuesday.
It finds Jim Hopper (David Harbour) monologing to his adopted daughter, Eleven (Millie Bobby Brown), as she prepares to fight Vecna once and for all alongside the entire Hawkins gang.
“I need you to fight one last time,” Hopper tells Eleven in the trailer. “Life has been so unfair to you. Your childhood was taken from you. You’ve been attacked, manipulated, by terrible people, but you never let it break you. Fight for the days on the other side of this. Fight for a world beyond Hawkins. Let’s end this, kid.”
As Hopper delivers the monologue, pivotal scenes from all of the five seasons of Stranger Things play in a montage before we see the crew begin the final battle with Vecna.
“The final battle is looming — and with it, a darkness more powerful and more deadly than anything they’ve faced before. To end this nightmare, they’ll need everyone — the full party — standing together, one last time,” according to the show’s synopsis.
The first volume of the three-part drop of Stranger Things season 5 was released on Nov. 26. Volume 2 dropped on Dec. 25, while the two-hour series finale premieres on Dec. 31.
Netflix is also screening the Stranger Things series finale in a limited theatrical release. The screenings take place in over 500 cinemas across the U.S. and Canada starting on Dec. 31 at 5 p.m. PT, timed exactly to the episode’s global premiere on Netflix. They’ll run through Jan. 1.
Jennifer Aniston as Alex Levy in ‘The Morning Show.’ (Apple TV)
Apple’s streaming service is leaving the plus behind.
Apple TV+ is rebranding to Apple TV, the company announced on Monday. The name change was revealed in a press release announcing the streaming release date for F1: The Movie.
Toward the end of the press release, Apple announced that Apple TV+ will now be known as Apple TV. The company referred to the rebrand as “a vibrant new identity.”
This marks the first name change in the platform’s history. The streaming service launched on Nov. 1, 2019, with eight original series and one documentary. Among the original slate of programming was Dickinson, The Morning Show, For All Mankind, See and Servant.
The service formerly known as Apple TV+ made history when it became the first streaming platform to win the Academy Award for best picture. It won for its 2021 drama film CODA. Several of its shows, including Ted Lasso and Severance, have received awards attention at the Emmys.
