I have recently had two relatively modern MacBook Pros with Retina displays, a 13" and a 15" display black screens. The 15" displayed this problem randomly and logging into the machine via. ARD showed that it was still producing video but was not recognizing it as the correct display and thus also not activating the backlighting (it was showing a generic 4x3 ratio display), and restarting usually fixed the issue. The 13" had lost video after a tiny little drop (like 1" - when it came to me there was zero indication of physical damage). A bit more investigation demonstrated that the 15" was experiencing reoccurrences of the issue after being moved around. Sit it on a desk and restart it with ARD and it worked fine, but every so often the screen would go black if you just picked the system up off the desk.
Long story short, I opened up both systems and simply reseated the video cable connection at the logic-board end. Both of them are now working properly. It's possible the the little locking-device that is supposed to hold the cable in place securely may be slightly mis-designed and not holding the cable into the socket firmly enough. Anyway, if you have a system with a similar issue trying this might be worth the effort.
(Look at steps 1, 2, 3, 4 & 11 of this guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBoo...Early+2013+Display+Assembly+Replacement/17045 ).
Long story short, I opened up both systems and simply reseated the video cable connection at the logic-board end. Both of them are now working properly. It's possible the the little locking-device that is supposed to hold the cable in place securely may be slightly mis-designed and not holding the cable into the socket firmly enough. Anyway, if you have a system with a similar issue trying this might be worth the effort.
(Look at steps 1, 2, 3, 4 & 11 of this guide: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/MacBoo...Early+2013+Display+Assembly+Replacement/17045 ).