By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Between major comic announcements, Apple quietly revealed a new teaser trailer for their upcoming series, Neuromancer. Fans of the classic William Gibson novel have been waiting for over 40 years to see the definitive cyberpunk novel get the adaptation it deserves. Originally announced in 2024, fans were excited over the announcement, but the resulting silence made them nervous. Time and time again, Hollywood has tried to adapt the novel, and each time, it’s never happened. Finally, not only do we have a release date, January 22nd, 2027, but we have a trailer.
Neuromancer looks incredible, and the way cyberspace is kept low-res and abstract mirrors Gibson’s descriptions from the novel. This isn’t anything like Tron or The Matrix, it’s closer to, well, Shadowrun and Cyberpunk 2077, both of which were heavily influenced by Gibson’s vision. It’s also, for a cyberpunk story, relatively straightforward: it’s all about a heist.
The Unfilmable Novel
The series stars Callum Turner as Case, the best hacker out there, and Briana Middleton as Molly, a razor-girl (re: assassin), with Mark Strong as Armitage, the government operative who sends them off to retrieve a module containing a digitized version of Case’s mentor. Nothing’s ever that easy as the job spirals into betrayals, a race against time, and a superintelligent AI gets involved.
William Gibson’s novel has been considered “unfilmable” with multiple failed attempts to bring it to the big screen. Mel Gibson, Hayden Christensen, Liam Neeson, Mark Wahlberg, are only some of the stars who received offers over the decades. Gibson gave his blessing to a few different scripts, but whether it was cost, timing, or getting a finalized script, all of them have failed.
As far as cyberpunk stories go, the plot is fairly simple. Case and Molly get a team together, pull off a heist, and save the day (sort of). Gibson’s writing is propulsive with more action than you’d expect, and in truth, it almost reads as if you’re watching a movie play out. And yet, it’s seemingly been cursed.
40 Years Of Failed Adaptations
Even the Marvel Comics graphic novel only covered the first two chapters of the novel and then was cancelled. We’re used to comics picking up after a sci-fi series was canceled, but for one to not even make it to the heist itself is tragic. Neuromancer is one of the definitive cyberpunk novels, if not the most important one to the development of the entire genre.
Cyberpunk has been going through a renaissance lately, with Cyberpunk 2077 overcoming a rocky start to become an award-winning hit, the anime spinoff, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is getting a second season, Ghost in the Shell is back, and there’s a new Blade Runner on the way. It’s always nice when there’s more to sci-fi than space opera and dystopian futures.
AppleTV has become the home for prestige sci-fi. Silo, Foundation, For All Mankind, Severance, the list keeps going. Adding Neuromancer to the list, and so far all of the footage does look incredible, turns the streaming service into a must-have for sci-fi fans. Now that Neuromancer is becoming a reality, maybe someday we’ll get Snow Crash and, though it’s not cyberpunk, Hyperion.
