Splice director Vincenzo Natali has been trying to make sci-fi Neuromancer for years, and finally he’s got his chance.

The adaptation of William Gibson’s seminal novel was shopped around Cannes this week, and was finally picked up by a distributor.

With the film rights also bought, filming is expected to commence early 2012, with locations including Canada, Istanbul, Tokyo, and London. Pre-visual effects work has already begun.

Released in 1984, Gibson’s novel kicked off the cyberpunk craze, the plot following Case, a computer whizz who lives his life in cyberspace. He's hired by a mysterious employer to "pull off the ultimate hack".

Collider spoke to Natali about the film last year. Here’s what he had to say:

“Splice is about evolving our bodies. Neuromancer is about evolving our minds, and how we’re going to merge and interact with machine consciousnesses in the future. Which I also think is inevitable, and I don’t think The Matrix begins or even attempts to go into that territory.

“In fact The Matrix, in some respects is like a Philip K. Dick book, it’s really about what is real. And Neuromancer flirts with that, but I think it’s more about our evolution. It’s also tonally much more realistic.

“The Matrix which I really liked, is a movie that’s very much based in comic-book reality, and kind of relishes in it. Whereas my approach to Neuromancer would be to treat it quite realistically.”

Source: Collider

Read more: Vincenzo Natali’s Neuromancer to film in early 2012 | TotalFilm.com

the way I see it, the difference between Phil and W.Gibson is that while Phil was a true visionary and a philosopher of his own kind, Gibson is more of a... can't remember the term he invented, but it's a person who can 'smell', 'feel' and predict trends. Besides, his last three 'mainstream' novels are exactly about that: predicting fashion and social trends. Gibson is more of an analyst. Exercise of imagination : what would PKD make of the internet, twitter and all this? Him who had to imagine colonies on Mars as a subterfuge for the human subconscious?

and I beg Natali's pardon, but the Matrix does begin to go there (how we’re going to merge and interact with machine consciousnesses in the future.) The difference is that the Matrix movies are a beautiful metaphor about duality becoming ONE, in a video-game setting (with highly unrealistic moments), while Neuromancer (and actually the Sprawl trilogy)is an analysis of a very possible and near future.
Completely different points of view. both trilogies end in a similar note, though ;)

sorry, will shut up now :D

@donna, yeah, since I never did get around to reading it I am happy they make it into a movie!

“…The Matrix, for instance, gives you is the opportunity to make ‘Neuromancer’ in a culture that is already aware of what The Matrix is,” said Natali in an interview with Slash Film last year. ”I mean, the very word ‘matrix’ is in Neuromancer. It was borrowed by the Wachowski brothers for their film. I think that’s a good thing, because I don’t even know how someone would have been able to make that film 10 years ago or 15 years ago, because it’s so abstract. I don’t even know how people understood the book when it first came out. I think I read it in the late 1980s, but in 1984, how would people even understand it, because it was just so far ahead of the curve?”

http://www.digitaltrends.com/entertainment/neuromancer-film-adaptation-begins-pre-production/

yes, I have seen that documentary. it explains a few things about Gibson and his universe...

Q: what is going to save us ?
A: acceptance. Acceptance of the impermanence of being and of the imperfect nature of being – or possibly the perfect nature of being , depending on how one looks at it.
[…] acceptance that this is not a rehearsal but this is it. This is the deal, this is your life.
[…] the fridge magnets…the New Age ones…they have a certain (?) truth to them .

( approximate quote) I’m not trying to predict the future […] I think we live in an incomprehensible present and what I’m trying to do is to illuminate the moment. Make the moment accessible .

The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Alex Haley. (I think everyone should read this, especially Americans)

http://www.amazon.com/The-Autobiography-Malcolm-Alex-Haley/dp/0891902163/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333221594&sr=1-1

Vineland by Thomas Pynchon. (Loved it, it's wacky and funny, and one of the easier Pynchon books to read.)

http://www.amazon.com/Vineland-Classic-20th-Century-Penguin-Pynchon/dp/0141180633/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333221905&sr=1-1

The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoyevsky

http://www.amazon.com/The-Karamazov-Brothers-Fyodor-Dostoevsky/dp/1613821514/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333220789&sr=1-1

Novel With Cocaine by M. Ageyev (This one looks really heavy!)

http://www.amazon.com/Novel-Cocaine-European-Classics-Ageyev/dp/0810117096

Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings by Jorge Luis Borges

http://www.amazon.com/Labyrinths-Selected-Stories-Other-Writings/dp/0811200124

I've noticed that many of the books he reads are really heavy. Even before I became interested in him enough to see what he reads, I had tried to read a couple of the books he's mentioned (i.e. Journey to the End of the Night) but they were intensive. Celine in particular was a little too dark for my mind-state at the time, and 'Novel with Cocaine' seems the same way. It seems really, really fascinating though. It has a very 'male' pov if you know what I mean. They are definitely mental trips.