The famous 1984 cyberpunk novel Neuromancer will receive a $70 million film adaptation, partly because hack director Paul W.S. Anderson knocked up his partner Milla Jovovich.
You see, Jovovich’s pregnancy means she can no longer shoot Paul Verhoeven’s project The Winter Queen (aka Azazel) anytime soon, so that film has been delayed by producer Peter Hoffman, with this $70 million book adaptation taking it’s place on the schedule.
Joseph Khan, the director of Torque will helm the flick, says Variety.
Neuromancer tells the story of Case, an out-of-work computer hacker hired by an unknown patron to participate in a seemingly impossible crime. The novel examines the concepts of artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering, multinational corporations overpowering the traditional nation-state and cyberspace long before these ideas became fashionable in popular culture.
The book written by William Gibson (whose novel Johnny Mnemonic was made into a feature with Keanu Reeves), has often been described as dealing with similar themes to that of The Matrix.
A huge budget for this movie then, a big risk for a novel that’s over 20 years old. In this day and age, where there is a huge movie released nearly every week, you really have to have something special about your flick to make a worthwhile return on a $70 million budget.
source – coming soon, variety
5 Comments
I am NOT impressed by these news. I love this book and the thought of it being killed by some sad ass director really makes me a little angry.
A book that broke so many barriers of sci-fi and really started a new genre deserves so much better than this.
I’m curious as to what Gibson thinks (if anything) about this.
The director of Torque, huh? Anytime I see anyone who’s worked with Rob Cohen (Fast & The Furious) I get angry and scared. That man, and his creative team, if they can be called that, have yet to produce anything of quality.
However I think Minority Report showed that not only can antiquated sci-fi material be updated it can be improved upon. But Joseph Kahn is no Spielberg.
JaySmack – Joseph Kahn has never worked with Rob Cohen to my knowledge. I’m excited about this news. Kahn’s really diverse, and one of the few remaining filmmaking visionaries. Check out his music videos for Muse “Knights of Cydonia”, Joss Stone “Spoiled” and Monster Magnet “Space Lord,” and then tell me you aren’t intrigued.
My mistake on saying Joseph Khan “worked with Cohen.” It was Torque’s producer, Neal Moritz, who worked with Cohen on XXX, Fast & Furious (1 and 2). So you’re right about that, Randall.
That aside, let’s get back to Mr Khan. Hearing he comes from a music video background is not encouraging. Michael “Marketing Hack” Bay came from that background as did Dominic Sena (Gone In 60 Seconds) Simon West (Con Air) and Jessy Terrero (Soul Plane). Khan may indeed have skill, but Torque was hardly a promising start, wouldn’t you agree? The glut of music video directors are ruining movies IMHO by making it more like TV and less like cinema. All flash and no substance. A precious few music video guys have managed to shed their MTV style and do real movie-making. Hopefully Khan will be one of them someday, but at present he’s simply not. We’ll just have to wait and see.
I did see “Spoiled” BTW and as I said, “Joseph Khan is NO Spielberg.” Check out the fine film that was Torque (a poor man’s -VERY poor man’s- Fast & Furious), then tell me what a visonary he is.
Torque had a weak script but Kahn shot the hell out of it. It’s actually not a bad start when you consider the first films of many big directors. There’s potential here.