For the first time in recorded history, an actual, real-deal photo of a black hole — calling Chris Nolan and Robert Forster! — was circulated today.

N.Y. Times excerpt: “The image, a lopsided ring of light surrounding a dark circle deep in the heart of the galaxy known as Messier 87, some 55 million light-years away from Earth, resembles the Eye of Sauron, a reminder yet again of the power and malevolence of nature. It is a smoke ring framing a one-way portal to eternity.

“To capture the image, astronomers reached across intergalactic space to Messier 87, a giant galaxy in the constellation Virgo. There, a black hole several billion times more massive than the sun is unleashing a violent jet of energy some 5,000 light-years into space.”

The image isn’t as disappointing as Jupiter, but it’s a little too vague and indistinct — it’s just not what we want to see when we’re looking at “an actual photo of a black hole.”

Historic but nonetheless underwhelming photo of an actual black hole.

13 months ago director-screenwriter Emily Carmichael spoke with Coming Soon‘s Max Evry about her screenplay for Disney’s on-and-off-but-more-recently-on Black Hole remake.

Evry: You’re writing Disney’s reboot of The Black Hole, which is very exciting. I’m actually a big fan of that film, warts and all.

Carmichael: Fuck yeah!

Evry: I think that movie is fascinating because it’s a movie of two eras. It was originally developed post-2001: A Space Odyssey as more of a serious science fiction film and then when Star Wars came out they were like, ‘Oh, we gotta Star Wars this up!” It has foot in old school sci-fi and the effects extravaganzas that followed Star Wars.

Carmichael: Yes that’s a fascinating read, and I think you definitely get the two undercurrents at play in that movie. The new one is gonna be less brooding a pace, it’s a faster movie, but still has some of the big idea science quality, which I think is great. The producers on that one keep telling me to put more science in, “make the science more accurate.” The more science that’s in it the better the script get, and actually the science works really well with the emotional development and the character development. That process has been really good.

Evry: I talked to Joe Kosinski about that project not too long ago. Is he still involved?

Carmichael: Yeah!

Evry: He told me that a lot of the tone of what he was going for was something very akin to what Chris Nolan did with Interstellar. Is that still the case?

Carmichael: It’s much funnier and more roguish than Interstellar. It has more of that Disney adventure feel.

Evry: The original was, at its core, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in space. Is that idea still intact?

Carmichael: There is a big change that Justin Springer, one of the producers, introduced to the script, which is a cool time synchronicity effect happening. Time passes more slowly when you’re in the vicinity of a hyper-massive object, which allows our characters to separate and re-enter in interesting ways and at unexpected times. I would say it is no longer about a crew that finds a madman who disappeared into the wilderness many years ago. Our film gives you a chance to catch up with them right after he absconds with the ship, in the spirit of more forward motion. It is still about an enigmatic man with really strong feelings about what happens when you fly a ship through a black hole, and he’s very determined to do that!”