June 22, 2007
Gibson’s Neuromancer Movie Now Has an IMDB Listing
About a month ago, Variety came out with a story stating that Indie producer Peter Hoffman was going to be making William Gibson’s Neuromancer, and that it had been greenlit with a $70 million budget (First Showing also reported this). Then the other shoe dropped - Torque director Joseph Kahn, also known for his Britney Spears Toxic video, has been penciled in as the director. So what, was Michael Bay already busy fucking up some other movie franchise, and therefore wasn’t available? Surely Uwe Boll could have been persuaded, right? Seriously, you gotta wonder what criteria was used in making this selection. OK fine - when the previously unknown Peter Jackson was thrust in the role of directing a movie of a genre-creating sacred novel, he emerged a cinematic genius; but lets face it, Braindead and Heavenly Creatures at least showed real talent, whereas Torque…
We know that there have been a variety of attempts to turn Neuromancer into a movie before, most notably by Chuck Russell and later by Chris Cunningham, but for whatever reason, the projects never got off the ground. With this in mind, William Gibson on his blog put this issue in perspective.
Word from the Croisette has some of our posters gnashing their teeth at the possibility that someone who’s made Britney vids might attempt a feature film of Neuromancer. (SFAM NOTE: There was some gnashing on teeth in the meatspace about this as well)
Discussing said possibility, earlier today, with Cory Doctorow, he said:
“I’ve noticed that everything in Hollywood always appears to be in a liminal state of nearly there, with enormous, gallumphing enthusiasm all around, then long periods of indifference. I get almost weekly calls about the amazing things that are just about to happen for me. I go to studio meetings with people who tell me about the amazing things we’ll do together. Somehow, nothing much comes of it… It reminds me a little of bubble-era tech entrepreneurs, especially the business development people who always seemed about to close a GIANT DEAL.”
In looking into this, it is interesting to note that Peter Hoffman’s company, Seven Arts still has no listing in its “Coming Soon” section for Neuromancer. If the movie has been greenlit and is being rushed into production (never a great sign), you’d think they’d already be hard at work on the advertising. As of just yesterday when I checked, there was no IMDB listing for Neuromancer, so I was ready to believe this was all just vapor. However, when now I look, we do find a new, fairly empty IMDB Neuromancer listing (if anyone has an IMDB Pro account, please let us know what additional info is listed!). By no means does this make Neuromancer a done deal (and happily, it doesn’t yet list the director), but it does indicate progress toward a real attempt of a project. Lets keep track of Seven Arts’ website for updates.
And its not that I have anything personally against Mr. Kahn - perhaps he’s just waiting for the right opportunity to show his genius nature. But I think I might be happier if, say, someone in the ballpark of Chris Cunningham or Ridley Scott were making this - you know - someone that had already proven their Scifi brilliance. Especially considering its apparently gonna be a “rush” job, I guess all we can do now is hope for either a miracle or early termination.
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22 Comments on Gibson’s Neuromancer Movie Now Has an IMDB Listing »
June 22, 2007
Ray @ 9:06 pm:
I recently read Neuromancer. Great book. I’m currently reading Count Zero.
Case @ 10:12 pm:
I don’t know. “From the director of TORQUE” doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
SFAM @ 11:12 pm:
Hi Case, that might be the biggest understatement you’ve made here! Um, no, “From the director of Torque” as a headliner advertising slogan is NOT gonna bring in the masses.
June 23, 2007
Case @ 12:08 am:
Well, my sarcasm didn’t come across strong enough in that statement…which, in fact, chills me to the bone. I’d rather see no movie at all…ever…
SFAM @ 12:47 am:
Oh, your sarcasm came across wonderfully. I got quite a hearty chuckle from your comment!
Caelum @ 1:45 am:
blog shoulda been I’ve Heard More Neuromancer Film Deals Than You People Would Believe :3
I think Gibson’s critique of Hollywood relegating books to stand below movies gets interesting with SFAM’s point about Peter Jackson’s LOTR adaptation. Look at all the licensing and crap we have now that LOTR has been made into a movie, but it’s not really that much of a bad thing- the movies themselves were good and it’s inspired a few people to read the books who otherwise wouldn’t have. Since a good length of time seperated the novels’ publication and the movie production, and since LOTR was widely acclaimed as creating a whole subgenre of literature in the meantime, nobody would label the books as an intermediary stage. So I see Gibson’s point as a valid one for many, many novel/movie couplings released nowadays, but only sometimes. I think the Sprawl Trilogy’s cultural impact is comparable to LOTR’s and I look forward to a spectacular Neuromancer movie 20 years in the future when the Cyberpunk genre has really fleshed out its aesthetics into other art forms as Fantasy did in the latter 20th century.
Ray: Enjoy!!
Caelum @ 1:54 am:
also remember LOTR had that godforsakenly horrible movie made of it in 1978 so even if this Torque guy butchers Neuromancer there is still hope
SFAM @ 3:08 am:
Good points, Caelum. Ralph Bakshi’s rotoscoping attempt on LOTR was horridly awful. Although, as much as I love cyberpunk and Neuromancer in particular, I don’t know that I’d agree its penetrated society to the extent Tolkien has. Still, just as Tolkien created a hugely popular genre called epic fantasies, Gibson did the same with a reasonably successful genre called cyberpunk.
It would be nice to see it at least in the hands of a craftsman though. I mean , jeeze. You’re gonna blow $70 million - you might as well get someone good to do it, ey?
lucas @ 2:25 pm:
Also by Joseph Kahn: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Ug_bdbxtUM
SFAM @ 3:07 pm:
Hi Lucas, thanks so much for posting that! That video is like orders of magnitude better than the others I’ve seen. It seemed like Kahn was trying to cram as many homages to cyberpunk flicks as possible there. The Blade Runner ones worked best I thought, but the ending Matrix on was decent too.
At least this makes me feel better about the guy. He at least seems familiar with and enjoys the genre. Who knows, perhaps there’s hope.
Ghostface @ 3:44 pm:
Hey does anyone know of any directors that came out with suprizingly good movies after a couple bad ones? I wanna know what the chances are.
I’d rather have no neuromancer movie made at all then a really bad one…
lucas @ 9:55 pm:
Forget about Torque. It’s a horrible film. Somebody forgot to write a script before starting the shooting. Visit mr Kahn’s website and take a look at his videoclips. My favourite ones are those he did for Gabage, Muse, Jamiroquai and George Michael (Even the one with Mariah Carey includes some guys fighting with katanas on a rooftop). There’re also a pair of interesting tv spots: a Nascar one with a cyborg chase and a pair for Vodafone with Milla Jovovich. I’m not saying the film is going to be good, but I can undertand the reasons that made producers choose Mr. Kanh. He’s a talented guy. If only he could be given a good script and a handful of decent actors… we’ll see.
(Thanks to you, SFAM. You have a wonderful site here.)
Caelum @ 10:32 pm:
that Freek vid was like an Americanized I.K.U. in so many ways
June 24, 2007
SFAM @ 4:37 am:
I fuckin LOVE it that people here now reference I.K.U. as if most should know this flick! Most Awesome!
And Lucas, you’ve caused me to revisit my thoughts on this. I will spend some time on Mr. Kahn’s website and browse around a bit. If he seems talented, I’ll either modify the above post or do a follow-up one.
June 25, 2007
Francis @ 3:50 pm:
“Freak” is a stupid song. (http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Ug_bdbxtUM from a previous comment). But the video is pretty good. Both Freak and Toxic have a style that’s in the right direction of what I’d want to see in Neuromancer. I kinda want to say let this guy make it. As a friend of mine pointed out the costumes are kinda plastic-y but the style he managed to pull though on music videos makes me wonder what he could do on his own movie.
As for torque, if you have no script you can’t make a good movie. And frankly.. he hasn’t done very many movies. I can’t say whether making crappy movies for the money is going to be indicative for all of his movies will turn out. But I don’t think anybody can. Maybe it would feel safer if someone better established was lined up to direct Neuromancer, or if we could let Joseph Kahn cut his teeth on a less revered story, but I’m willing to wait and see how it turns out.
June 28, 2007
MarkCBeauchesne @ 1:40 pm:
I would hate to see the whole Neuromancer series be ruined with a commercial public image. I can already imagine a new set of books coming out with images from the movie on the front page and in the center of the book filled with pictures from the movie. Okay maybe not to that extreme but still.
July 9, 2007
MarkCBeauchesne @ 4:06 pm:
Technically I’ve never read the books I’ve only played the game.
September 11, 2007
Shatter @ 5:21 am:
Ya, let’s be careful about being happy about this, or did everyone forget about Johnny Neumonic? I’ve seen announcements like this quite a few times. Believe it when I see the trailer for it.
Also- I liked Baskshi’s LotR. Watch it again. He managed to cover all the way through Two Towers, and while it was abridged, it wasn’t bad. Better than Rankin & Bass.
September 14, 2007
APX @ 2:14 am:
I checked Joseph Kahn website, and I’ll give this guy a chance. I didn’t watch Torque, but this guy made fantastic music videos and commercials, and you can see cyberpunk elements in a lot of his works. Let’s see what happens, only time will tell, as always.
Check the site: http://www.josephkahn.com
APX @ 7:46 pm:
Hey guys, check this, Joseph Kanh defends himself
http://williamgibsonboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8606097971/m/3831022623
January 19, 2008
bekki @ 5:38 pm:
I don’t know if anyone has checked out the IMBD page recently, but there’s an actor listed for Case now: Hayden Christensen. I’m not particularly sure how I feel about that, but he hasn’t been in that movies that were very good to start with (though a friend assures me his work in Shattered Glass was decent). In terms of casting, I think the make or break will be their selection for Molly. Because she is among the most iconic characters of the genre, a poor choice for that role would be devastating.
I’m definitely willing to give Kahn the benefit of the doubt, since he does, as already pointed out, seem to have the visuals to make this work. I do worry, thought, that his body of work doesn’t exhibit the maturity necessary for this story. Also, I don’t know much about his ability to work with a plot since I can’t bring myself to watch Torque.
January 26, 2008
tagline @ 5:37 am:
It gets worse and worse! Surely the Neuromancer name would have more clout? Given the money thrown at superhero films… I mean, Molly doing acrobatics in tight leather and those razer blades out the fingers. It’s like wolverine but sexed up.
Given what I know so far i’m now picturing Britney Spears in tight leather in her filmic debut - and i’m feeling physically ill. Can you imagine the Hayden-Britney chemistry on screen?