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