Forty years ago, author William Gibson brought the world a cyberpunk novel called Neuromancer – and an adaptation of that story has been trudging its way through development hell pretty much ever since. Versions of a feature film adaptation have passed through the hands of director like music video maker Chris Cunningham, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors and The Blob‘s Chuck Russell, Torque‘s Joseph Kahn, Cube‘s Vincenzo Natali, and Deadpool‘s Tim Miller. While these projects were being put together (and while they fell apart), Neuromancer fans always wondered who would end up playing the lead character, Henry Dorsett Case. Hayden Christensen was rumored to be the top contender when Kahn was going to direct (with Liv Tyler rumored to co-star). Liam Neeson and Mark Wahlberg were said to be in the running for Natali’s version, although it wasn’t said who they might be playing. Now an adaptation of Neuromancer is moving forward as a 10-episode series that’s set up at Apple TV+ – and we finally know for sure who’s going to be playing Case. Deadline reports that the role has gone to BAFTA Award-nominee Callum Turner of Masters of the Air and The Boys in the Boat.
Created for television by Graham Roland (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan) and JD Dillard (The Outsider), Neuromancer will follow a damaged, top-rung super-hacker named Case (Turner) who is thrust into a web of digital espionage and high stakes crime with his partner Molly, a razor-girl assassin with mirrored eyes, aiming to pull a heist on a corporate dynasty with untold secrets.
Gibson’s novel has the following description: Case was the sharpest data thief in the matrix—until he crossed the wrong people, and they crippled his nervous system, banishing him from cyberspace. Now a mysterious new employer has recruited him for a last-chance run at an unthinkably powerful artificial intelligence. With a dead man riding shotgun and Molly, a mirror-eyed street samurai, to watch his back, Case is ready for the adventure that upped the ante on an entire genre of fiction. Neuromancer was the first fully realized glimpse of humankind’s digital future—a shocking vision that has challenged our assumptions about technology and ourselves, reinvented the way we speak and think, and forever altered the landscape of our imaginations.
Gibson, Roland, and Dillard are executive producing the series with David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, and Matt Thunell of Skydance Television, Anonymous Content; Drake, Adel’ Future’ Nur, and Jason Shrier of DreamCrew Entertainment; and Zack Hayden.
Are you a fan of William Gibson’s Neuromancer, and are you looking forward to the Apple TV+ series adaptation? What do you think of Callum Turner taking on the role of Case? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
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