Talk about burying the lede: After reporting some who-gives-a-shit story about Jason Priestley directing a romantic comedy set in a frog-infested vineyard in British Columbia, Hollywood Reporter drops this "In other Canadian news" bombshell: Canuck director Vincenzo Natali has been tapped to helm an adaptation of William Gibson's 1984 cyberpunk bible, Neuromancer. (Okay, so maybe that's only a bombshell to four-eyed, Cheeto-fingered shut-ins like your humble Newswire correspondent. But still.)
Although Gibson's short story "Johnny Mnemonic"—a prequel of sorts to Neuromancer—made it to the big screen in 1995, the novel itself has been stuck in development limbo for years. In 2007, it was announced that Torque director Joseph Kahn had signed on to the project, with Hayden Christensen cast as the lead. Now it seems as though Kahn is out and Natali is in (no word on Christensen); THR also says that the new director will be scripting the film himself. Natali is best known for his 1997 mind-fuck thriller Cube, and his new feature, the Adrien Brody-starring, sci-fi film Splice, is due next month. Even more geektastically, First Showing recently reported that Natali has set his sights on two more adaptations: Alan Moore's Swamp Thing and J.G. Ballard's High-Rise. Fuck. Someone hand me an inhaler.