Netflix Taps Gyngell & Fernandez-Armesto for Black Box
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- Netflix has tapped writing partners Adam Gyngell and Fred Fernandez-Armesto to adapt the 2021 French thriller Boîte Noire (Black Box) into an English-language remake, with Fehlbaum directing.
- The original Black Box, directed by Yann Gozlan and released by Studiocanal in 2021 (Distrib Films handled a limited U.S. release), follows an NTSB black box analyst who uncovers chilling audio anomalies in a catastrophic plane crash and provokes a conspiracy; Pierre Niney and Lou de Laâge starred.
- Tim Fehlbaum — director of the Oscar-nominated September 5 — is directing the remake, a casting the outlet previously broke last winter.
- 1.21's Andrew Mittman (producer of Together and Wednesday) is producing alongside original-film producers Wassim Beji, Thibault Gast, and Matthias Weber, with 1.21's Kai Dolbashian executive producing.
- Gyngell and Fernandez-Armesto previously wrote an episode of Apple TV's Hijack starring Idris Elba and three episodes of ITV's Strangers; they are repped by CAA, Untitled, and Sayle Screen in the UK.
- The writers are also developing series and feature projects at Carrousel Studios and Thunder Road.
Why it matters: Netflix is pairing an Oscar-nominated prestige director (Fehlbaum) with emerging UK writers whose Hijack credit already runs on a rival streamer (Apple TV), signaling competition for contained thriller IP. The 1.21 production banner — behind Wednesday and Together — brings commercial TV scale to a high-concept conspiracy premise built around a single investigator and a single recording.
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