Neuromancer comes

After more than two decades of influencing countless modern sci-fi stories and concepts in film, TV, videogames, books and comics, an adaptation of William Gibson’s seminal 1984 novel NEUROMANCER is finally heading to theaters.

Producer Peter Hoffman will essentially make the movie as a $70 million indie. Director Joseph Kahn, whose only feature to date is the ingenious postmodern Western TORQUE (yes, I actually do love TORQUE), will bring Gibson’s prophetic vision of cyberspace to screens. Chuck Russell (THE MASK) and music vid director Chris Cunningham made previous attempts to adapt NEUROMANCER during its lengthy stay in development hell.

Gibson’s brilliant award-winning cyberpunk tale (which also coined the term The Matrix some 15 years before Neo jacked in) follows unemployed “console cowboy” Case who gets recruited (Plissken-style) by a razorgirl named Molly and a shadowy ex-military officer for a top secret job, only to find himself entangled in a Byzantine plot involving insanely powerful artificial intelligence.