• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Deadline: Tim Miller (Deadpool) to direct William Gibson's Neuromancer

G

GuitarAtomik

Member
Back when Deadline revealed that Deadpool helmer Tim Miller had dropped out of the sequel of his hit movie over creative differences, Fox insiders said the studio would work hard to make sure that it found a major project for Miller and his VFX studio Blur to build from the ground up. They've found one: Neuromancer, the classic cyberpunk novel by William Gibson. Simon Kinberg will produce. The studio will soon set a writer to adapt a tale that has drawn the interest of several filmmakers in the past.
Click to expand...
Miller's attention right now is on the resurrection of The Terminator franchise that he is teamed on creatively with creator James Cameron. That film is expected to start production next spring.
Click to expand...
http://deadline.com/2017/08/deadpoo...am-gibson-movie-fox-simon-kinberg-1202145496/

Odds on this being the one who actually makes it?
 
S

Shoeless

Member
Neuromancer is one of the reasons I even decided to try my hand at writing fiction, so the book has a special place in my heart.

That said, I don't have high hopes for a decent adaptation. I still remember Johnny Mnemonic...
 
O

Occam

Member
How could this possibly turn out good? Remember how Hollywood execs inserted human batteries into The Matrix (which made no sense at all) because they thought people were too dumb to understand the concept of a neuronal network?
 
matt360

matt360

Member
Wow, good timing. I just picked up the book yesterday to prepare for our gaming circle's Cyberpunk 2020 RPG campaign.
 
Kadayi

Kadayi

Banned
Albeit a huge fan of Neuromancer and the rest of the sprawl trilogy, I think it's likely to prove very hard to adapt successfully, given that despite Gibson's enticing take on the future, there's a lot that he didn't foresee that undermine a lot of the plot points from a technological perspective. I think the window of opportunity for a successful film adaptation was probably back in the 90s tbh. Happy to be proven wrong, but just not seeing it translating all that well today.
 
X

Xero

Member
Occam said:
How could this possibly turn out good? Remember how Hollywood execs inserted human batteries into The Matrix (which made no sense at all) because they thought people were too dumb to understand the concept of a neuronal network?
Click to expand...
That plot change in the matrix is a nitpick at best, hardly a relevant anecdote to worry.
 
L

louiedog

Member
This reminded me we're supposed to get an Altered Carbon series from Netflix this year. Hopefully this stuff works out because I want more cyberpunk on screen. Ghost in the Shell wasn't what it should have been and I'm not feeling great about Blade Runner.
 
Razorback

Razorback

Member
I'm really skeptical this has any chance of being good. This book invented all the tropes in the genre. It will feel terribly derivative to watch it in contrast with everything else that has taken inspiration from it in the intervening decades.
 
O

op_ivy

Fallen Xbot (cannot continue gaining levels in this class)
This cyberpunk renewel is cool. But when does the bubble pop?
 
P

Pachinko

Member
Shoeless said:
Neuromancer is one of the reasons I even decided to try my hand at writing fiction, so the book has a special place in my heart.

That said, I don't have high hopes for a decent adaptation. I still remember Johnny Mnemonic...
Click to expand...
... and sadly that one even had a script by Gibson himself and yet it still faltered.

I'd love to see a successful neuromancer film but I'm unsure of how to pull it off well... do you simply take the same main characters and throw them in a similar story that works as a film ? Try to adapt everything ? And how high of a budget do you set aside ?
 
C

Chiaroscuro

Member
Occam said:
How could this possibly turn out good? Remember how Hollywood execs inserted human batteries into The Matrix (which made no sense at all) because they thought people were too dumb to understand the concept of a neuronal network?
Click to expand...

So, that is was supposed the reason humans were kept alive? Makes sense. The battery thing made me roll my eyes at the theater.
 
T

Transhuman

Unconfirmed Member
Aaron Paul as Case
Noomi Rapace as Molly
Liam Neeson as Armitage
Michael Fassbender as Peter Riviera
 
O

Occam

Member
Chiaroscuro said:
So, that is was supposed the reason humans were kept alive? Makes sense. The battery thing made me roll my eyes at the theater.
Click to expand...

Yeah, same. It made me angry while watching the movie for the first time, because it was so disappointingly stupid.

But yeah, that's why they were kept alive. They were the Matrix.

I wish they had filmed another version of the battery scene where Morpheus explains the Matrix is a neural net instead, so that it could be re-inserted into a director's cut.
 
C

Chiaroscuro

Member
Occam said:
Yeah, same. It made me angry while watching the movie for the first time, because it was so disappointingly stupid.

But yeah, that's why they were kept alive. They were the Matrix.

I wish they had filmed another version of the battery scene where Morpheus explains the Matrix is a neural net instead, so that it could be re-inserted into a director's cut.
Click to expand...

Is there anywhere is this canon? Cause all the animated shorts also followed this flawed logic. Cannot use sun light to get electricity? Ok, so nuclear, geothermal, wind and many other energy sources were less viable than harvesting humans? Beyond dumb.
 
Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
Smart moves by Miller. Use the good will from Deadpool to get yourself mixed into a couple of franchises. This sounds a ways off but it's a nice back up if Terminator falls through or flops.
 
D

Dr Zhivago

Member
'The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.'

On my last two TVs, that colour would be blue.
 
Kadayi

Kadayi

Banned
Transhuman said:
Aaron Paul as Case
Noomi Rapace as Molly
Liam Neeson as Armitage
Michael Fassbender as Peter Riviera
Click to expand...

Interesting nominations. I'd swap out Steven Lang, for Liam Neeson and Charlize Theron for Noomi Rapace. Paul and Fassbender I could see though.
 
S

Shoeless

Member
Dr Zhivago said:
'The sky above the port was the colour of television, tuned to a dead channel.'

On my last two TVs, that colour would be blue.
Click to expand...

To be fair, Gibson also completely missed cellular phones, and that's why public phone booths still exist in his cyberpunk future. It's one of those gaffes he willingly admits in interviews.
 
V

Violet_0

Banned
Neuromancer is one of my all time-favorite novels. It's one of the most influential sci-fi books. The scope of the movie would have to be similar to the original Blade Runner for it to not suck
 
R

RoninChaos

Member
Kadayi said:
Albeit a huge fan of Neuromancer and the rest of the sprawl trilogy, I think it's likely to prove very hard to adapt successfully, given that despite Gibson's enticing take on the future, there's a lot that he didn't foresee that undermine a lot of the plot points from a technological perspective. I think the window of opportunity for a successful film adaptation was probably back in the 90s tbh. Happy to be proven wrong, but just not seeing it translating all that well today.
Click to expand...

Like what?
 
J

- J - D -

Member
Ghost in the Shell (lol)
Blade Runner 2049
Altered Carbon
Neuromancer
Cyberpunk 2077
Snow Crash

bvViOgc.gif
 
M

MattKeil

BIGTIME TV MOGUL #2
Chiaroscuro said:
Is there anywhere is this canon? Cause all the animated shorts also followed this flawed logic. Cannot use sun light to get electricity? Ok, so nuclear, geothermal, wind and many other energy sources were less viable than harvesting humans? Beyond dumb.
Click to expand...

It isn't canon. It's just what the original draft of the script used as an explanation, which was changed to the battery thing when the studio decided audiences were too stupid to know what a neural net was. Some fans like to pretend it's canon instead of the battery thing, though, which I can certainly understand.
 
S

Shoeless

Member
SomedayTheFire said:
Cool. I've always had a vivid image of how this book should look on screen.
Click to expand...

I've had a very specific look for Molly in my head for decades. It's going to be some serious cognitive dissonance for me if this movie gets made and I finally see how different the cinematic interpretation is sure to be.
 
M

midramble

Pizza, Bourbon, and Thanos
Exciting but I can't get my hopes up. My mental images and expectations are waaaaaay to high.

The root of cyberpunk on film is too tall an order.
 
S

SomedayTheFire

Member
Kadayi said:
Albeit a huge fan of Neuromancer and the rest of the sprawl trilogy, I think it's likely to prove very hard to adapt successfully, given that despite Gibson's enticing take on the future, there's a lot that he didn't foresee that undermine a lot of the plot points from a technological perspective. I think the window of opportunity for a successful film adaptation was probably back in the 90s tbh. Happy to be proven wrong, but just not seeing it translating all that well today.
Click to expand...
I honestly think to make this film work it would need to be filmed from an 80s/90s cyberpunk angle. I shudder to think what a modern day sprawl would look like. But go back and make it more, I guess, primitive. Keep the dirty, grimey feel of what the adaption would have been like 25 years ago with I guess vintage futuristic technology.

I'd hate it to looked like the Total Recall remake for example

Shoeless said:
I've had a very specific look for Molly in my head for decades. It's going to be some serious cognitive dissonance for me if this movie gets made and I finally see how different the cinematic interpretation is sure to be.
Click to expand...
Yeah I can see that. Mine is less characters and more location and technology. Think a lot of the charm would be lost if they were updated to modern standards so to speak.
 
S

Snowybreak

Member
- J - D - said:
An Altered Carbon series is being developed for Netflix. Snow Crash is in pre-production I think and is supposed to start shooting this year, but who knows.
Click to expand...

Altered Carbon series... Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder how they'll handle all the sex and violence.
 
S

Shoeless

Member
- J - D - said:
An Altered Carbon series is being developed for Netflix. Last I heard, Snow Crash is in pre-production and is supposed to start shooting this year, but who knows.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the mention of this. I actually hadn't heard of it. Adding it to my Kindle sample to check it out.
 
J

- J - D -

Member
Snowybreak said:
Altered Carbon series... Yeah, that makes sense. I wonder how they'll handle all the sex and violence.
Click to expand...

Netflix has been pretty lax with both in some of their shows so I think we'll get Altered Carbon in a mostly unfiltered form. The only concern I have is that Joel Kinneman plays the lead, and he's kinda hit-or-miss to me.

Shoeless said:
Thanks for the mention of this. I actually hadn't heard of it. Adding it to my Kindle sample to check it out.
Click to expand...

Yes! Altered Carbon is such a pulpy fun read, and is rich in detail.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Deadpool & Wolverine | Rotten Watch
Community
29
3K
Durien replied
2025 Movies - North American Release Schedule
4
2K
dispensergoinup replied
Tim Miller (Deadpool) appears to be officially directing Terminator 6.
2 3
111
10K
Ulysses 31 replied
Phil Lord & Christopher Miller To Direct ‘Martian’ Author's New Novel ‘Artemis'
35
4K
Ignatz Mouse replied
  • Locked
James Cameron godfathers new Terminator film, Tim Miller to direct
2 3 4 5
217
15K
Mammoth Jones replied
Top Bottom