WIRE Buzz: Netflix's Little Black Mirror; Hulu's horror anthology; more

Today’s WIRE Buzz features two new anthologies from two of the biggest streaming services out there. Hulu and Netflix are both adding to the massive pool of genre TV with their new shows, both of which claim a few fun bona fides from their sources.

First is Netflix’s Little Black Mirror. A Spanish-focused video series supporting Black Mirror’s technophobic sci-fi, Little Black Mirror is a set of three shorts (starring Latinx actors and social media stars) aimed at promoting the main series’ fifth season.

Update (6/3): Netflix confirmed to SYFY WIRE that it has rebranded these videos as Stories from our Future, which are simply fan-made homages to the Black Mirror franchise, but with no in-universe connection.

The Rudy Mancuso-directed videos will feature the likes of Maia Mitchell, Rudy Mancuso, Juanpa Zurita, Lele Pons, Anwar Jibawi, Hannah Stocking, Jeff Wittek, Delaney Glazer, and Alesso creating their own versions of the same sort of twisty genre shocks as Black Mirror.

Check out the trailer:

These three stories will come to YouTube on May 26, June 2, and June 6, respectively, on the Netflix América Latina channel. The final short premieres a day after Black Mirror’s Season 5 hits the streaming service on June 5.

Next, some Hulu news. Forget Into the Dark, there’s a new horror anthology in town: The Untitled Mary Laws Project. Not an exciting name, we know, but it’s coming from a cool source.

Deadline reports that Hulu has ordered eight episodes based on Nathan Ballingrud’s short story collection North American Lake Monsters: Stories, from show creator/writer Mary Laws. While details are scarce aside from those known about the supernatural beasts populating the modern-day horror stories (think Supernatural’s take on angels and werewolves), horror fans should be excited that Under the Shadow director Babak Anvari has signed on to direct.

Anvari and Lucan Toh (also producing) previously adapted Ballingrud’s novella The Visible Filth into the indie horror Wounds (featuring Armie Hammer and Dakota Johnson), so the collaboration is already tightly knit. Sounds like the makings of a terrifying good time. No word on when production will begin or when a title will be finalized.

Finally, Netflix is also adding a kid-focused animated series about ghosts to its lineup. City of Ghosts, from Elizabeth Ito, will be a little bit documentary and a little bit animated adventure.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, Netflix greenlit the series, which comes from first-time showrunner Ito (who comes from Adventure Time) and focuses on some urban-dwelling kids learning about their city thanks to some otherworldly tour guides.

The show is based on Ito's experiences growing up in the melting pot neighborhoods of L.A. as a fourth-generation Japanese-American, presumably adding folklore elements to the cultural and local histories explored by the show.

City of Ghosts is in production now.