Gibson’s Neuromancer Movie Now Has an IMDB Listing

I recently read Neuromancer. Great book. I’m currently reading Count Zero.

I don’t know. “From the director of TORQUE” doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.

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.

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…

Oh, your sarcasm came across wonderfully. I got quite a hearty chuckle from your comment!

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!!

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

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?

Also by Joseph Kahn: http://youtube.com/watch?v=0Ug_bdbxtUM

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.

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…

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.)

that Freek vid was like an Americanized I.K.U. in so many ways

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.

“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.

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.

Technically I’ve never read the books I’ve only played the game.

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.

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

Hey guys, check this, Joseph Kanh defends himself

http://williamgibsonboard.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8606097971/m/3831022623

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.

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?

say it aint so! i have read all his books, countless times. why the fuck would he allow this ? oh my god.

obviously you’ve not seen the other two movies based on his books

“I mean, Molly doing acrobatics in tight leather and those razer blades out the fingers. It’s like wolverine but sexed up.”

…but that’s what she did.

checking the music videos, the director seems to favour style over substance. and when looking at “Toxic”, well, lets just say ive seen more plausible visuals in “Who framed Roger Rabbit”
My expectations are fairly low, im just interested to see whose slated to act. Hayden Christianson is truly pitiful, i think he was best summed up as being “half-man, half-tree” in regard to his box office turd, Jumper.
So, im not anticipating the movie but i will check in from time to time. i mean who knows??

So long…. chris cunningham! the cyberpunk dream is dead!

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF TORQEUEEUHAUEHAHAJHHGSHLKAMS

reading Kahns defending piece makes me remember those Boll rants that came and went a few months ago…

And please, Kahn… if you want respect… don’t do like Boll. Don’t sit and write pages and pages how hard it was to even do a film in the system, much less a good one…

Just let the work speak for itself. I saw Torque and basically thought it was a Fast&furious ripoff… not a sucky one, but it just didn’t stand on its own as much as it could have. It’s like watching Equilibrium/cubic… no matter how original the idea was in the beginning, people will always compare it with The Matrix.

We’ve had fenomenal directors go from music video’s and then to feature films… Like Bay and Fincher… and even Ridley Scott, director of Blade Runner began with his own commercial-production-company.

I have a little faith left… but no… don’t complain to the backlash… just concentrate on proving them wrong. Don’t do like Boll and spend more time on the web than actually making good movies.

And Hayden? I wish there was an award for most woddenly acting… I think there’s a Woddy-award… but that’s a porno-award if I remember correctly. I hope someone keeps him away from this one… And I somehow get a feeling that someone with power wants to put Shia LaBeuf in this one… but I’m not too sure on that either…

aw well enough complaining from me… must get a job so I can get money to finance my own movie-making carrier…

there`s two things - a book is a book is a book - and whoever finally develops a big screen version of neuromancer - better be at least 50 years old - and relaxed enough to do it right. anyone from coppola to tony scott - or learned his basic 20st century lessons well -so far so good - this is cyber-noir at its best. we`ll see…

Well, for the time being, it looks like Hayden Christensen will be playing Case, and Liv Tyler, will be most likely be playing Molly. Quite possibly the 2 most unemotional, deadpan “actors” in the world. Although Neuromancer isn’t exactly a dramatic Lifetime movie, it would be nice to get people who could actually act. Of course, the Matrix had this same problem, which is ironic considering that it has extremely similar characters and styles to Neuromancer.

And although I don’t want to come off as an over-zealous fanboy or a whiny wanker, I have to say in good faith that I will never see this film. Books are fantastic things. You read them, and they tell you what’s going on, but it’s up to you to imagine what everything actually looks like. After a while, you have to wonder if people will even really be intrigued by books anymore, when oh wait, the movie’s right here! Take the case of the film adaptation of the “Where the Wild Things Are” book. What do you think a kid is gonna’ ask for? The book or the movie?

So, can we please stop raping great works of literature because we can’t come up with good ideas on our own?…anybody?