8. The Great Cyberpunk Movie That Never Was
Considering it's almost single handily responsible for setting in stone the thematic blueprints for the entire sub-genre of cyberpunk, a genre that by its very nature screams out to be made physical on the big screen, it's mind-bending that William Gibson's all conquering future dystopia noir "Neuromancer" has never made it to the cinemas. Not for lack of trying though... With the millennium looming large, the 90s were a period of time where all eyes were fixed firmly towards the future with a murky obsession for what awaited us on the other side of the 2000 barrier. Films like "Hackers" and "The Matrix" were inspired by concepts, visuals and ideas created by Gibson and his cohorts decades earlier and resonated strongly with the mind-set of a generation looking to the future with trepidation and excitement. To validate Gibson's claim as a real forefather to this genre and time, "Cyberspace", the de-facto description of the internet was coined by him. In fact, some have argued that his descriptions of cyberspace and virtual reality back in the late 70s may have directly informed the way the actual internet wound up developing, simply by virtue of being embedded in the cultural consciousness of those responsible for its progress. In 2000 British director of cuckoo bananas Aphex Twin music videos Chris Cunningham began the process of adapting a script version of the book for the screen. For whatever reasons though, the tale of a washed up hacker hired by a shadowy individual to complete the ultimate hack in a dystopian future that was a chemical cocktail of Raymond Chandler, human machine augmentation, rogue A.I's, Nihilistic philosophy and sexy lady people with razors for fingers, failed to materialize into anything. Though Gibson did go on record as saying Cunningham was the only man capable of fleshing out the correct vision for the story and world. Smash cut to 2010 and Vincenzo Natali, cult director of "Cube" and "Splice" announces his intention to rekindle a Neuromancer movie adaption. Since then though? Radio silence on all channels. 2012 saw rumours of Liam Neeson and Mark Whalberg being approached to star, but the fact that no really solid news has emerged in almost 3 years regarding the state of the project suggests that it may be trapped in development hell somewhere in the bowels of the Hollywood beast. So it's looking more and more likely that we can officially confirm that the packaging to Neuromancers 1988 video game adaption had absolutely no idea what it was talking about when it proudly claimed a major motion picture was in the works from "Cabana Boy Productions" I'm calling you out as a liar Cabana. But please, feel free to go ahead and prove me wrong.