‘Star Trek Into Darkness’ $22M Friday For Lower … 
Finally, Cannes Dealing! Radius-TWC Nabs Director’s … 
Hammond On Cannes: Wet Fest’s Official Competition … 
‘Vampire Academy’ Adds ‘Modern … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Shark Tank’ Finale Up, … 
Cannes: Worldview Options Andrew Dominik’s Marilyn … 
UPFRONTS 2013: The Overachievers 
‘Mike & Molly’ Creator Mark Roberts To … 
Carey Mulligan, Matthias Schoenaerts Set For … 
Hammond On Cannes: Weinstein Brings Out Stars For 2013 … 
Cannes: Fake Gunshots Interrupt Canal Plus Live Broadcast … 
‘The Great Gatsby’ Starts With $5.4M … 
Cannes: Music Box Snags Competition’s ‘Michael … 
UPDATE: Amazon Studios Begins Pilot Pickups; … 
Bruce Rosenblum Bids Classy Goodbye 
RATINGS RAT RACE UPDATE: ‘American Idol’ Hits … 
UPDATE: ‘Iron Man 3′ Box Office Crosses $1B … 
Upfront Market: Will Auto Makers Subsidize TV … 
Cannes: Thief Makes Off With $1M+ In Chopard Jewelry Meant … 
‘Scandal’ Finale On Small Screen And Onstage At … 
‘Modern Family’ Gets Cable Makeover For Launch … 
EXCLUSIVE: Joe Cornish, who has been offered a ton of projects since his alien invasion breakthrough film Attack The Block, has been set to write and direct the Neal Stephenson novel Snow Crash. The book has just been reacquired by Paramount Pictures, with Kathleen Kennedy and Kennedy/Marshall producing.
It’s the second go around on the project for Paramount, which first developed the book back when it was published in 1992. It is a big bestseller and a seminal cyber-punk book that probably was ahead of its time. The book is set in the near future, when the U.S. exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and private enterprise and the mafia control everything. The plot involves a computer virus that is manifested as a drug called Snow Crash that is transmitted visually from computer screens to unsuspecting users, frying their brains. Hiro Protagonist – that’s the character’s name – a computer hacker/samurai swordsman/pizza delivery driver who investigates and tries to stop the takeover of postmodern civilization. It sounds wild, but it is steeped in its own mythology and has become a cult favorite among the cyberpunk set. Paramount dropped the project years ago and it went to Disney with Kennedy/Marshall and languished. Kennedy introduced Cornish to the book, he committed and it is now back at Paramount and is a priority. Cornish is repped by CAA and Independent Talent and the book was repped by CAA for the lit agency Darhansoff & Verrill.
Loading ...
This is gonna be a tough, if not completely unnecessary, adaptation to pull off. Attempting to adapt one of the most dense and intricate novels of the 90′s seems somewhat pointless. Maybe everyone should hold on this and see if “Cloud Atlas” works out.
this book had a crappy title when my mom gave it to me to read in 7th grade and it still has a crappy title. Better change the title to ‘Hiro’
Hiro Protagonist? Really? I mean, really?
(hint: seize tongue. insert into cheek)
I’m sorry that you don’t understand satire. That must make for a boring life.
Also, what was the name of the main character in your best-selling novel? Oh? You say you haven’t written any novel, let alone a legendary and amazing one? I see.
Yep, he’s a hacker and its his hacker name, but because he’s famous in the hacker world he uses it as his real name. Bit like Neo or Trinity in the matrix films, except Snow Crash was written first.
Also to anyone who hasn’t read Snow Crash do so, its not only a classic its also a rip roaring 100 miles per hour yarn.
Yeah, that was my first thought when I started reading the book. But the book was awesome. Gonna make for a tricky film…
If you haven’t read it you wouldn’t understand. The fact that he names his main character that and then proceeds to tell an excellent tale, justifying the name in the process is but one of the many things that makes it such a great book.
That’s kind of the point….it’s actually very clever.
Snow Crash is a terrific book that fans actually want to see as a film (and out of all of Stephenson’s novels is probably the closest to adaptable). Joe Cornish sounds like an interesting choice. Looking forwards to it.
If they actually pull this off I will never need to watch another film in my life *lol*
Curious to see if the young actress types fight over the YT role the way they fought over The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.
They’re going to have to figure out how to differentiate Hiro from Keanu Reeves from The Matrix (which Neo was basically ripped off from).
Pretty simple. Hiro is a black asian. He doesn’t wear nifty coats or glasses either. Instead he’s described as wearing 2 samurai swords, a pair of loose drawstring pants and a t-shirt if i remember correctly.
For one thing, Hiro’s explicitly described as being black. He also has a lot of wit and comes across as understanding most of what’s going on, rather than being confused by everything that’s going on.
Donald Glover in dreads? Hiro is half black/half korean, so I don’t know of any actors off the top of my head if they want to be quite that accurate.
That said, I’m kinda geeking out pretty hard over this. First Neuromancer, now Snow Crash? It’s a good time to be a cyberpunk.
Half black, half Japanese, actually. Hence the name Hiro and the samurai swords.
The casting will be a challenge for the roll. I can’t think of any actors that really fit off the top of my head.
Half Black and Half Korean that grew up in Japan. Read the book!
It’s funny that yes, Hiro is black, and yes, Neo is a rip-off of Hiro, and the first choice for Neo was Will Smith. I like Will Smith, but I really hope they don’t go with him. Hiro is also supposed to be part asian, isn’t he?
Simple: Will Smith. Hiro Protagonist gets to say “Hell naw” and swing swords.
Wow. Kudos to Paramount – this is one of the boldest moves I’ve ever seen from a studio. We should all hope they pull it off.
Great book. Not sure if it’s a movie. Cloud Atlas is definitely not a movie though, and they made that. So who knows.
Closest to adaptable? I’d say Zodiac fits that description much better than Snowcrash.
Maybe you should try using Reason on them. They’ll definitely listen to Reason.
“a computer hacker/samurai swordsman/pizza delivery driver who investigates and tries to stop the takeover of postmodern civilization”…that for sure is one of the craziest things I have heard!
Plot sounds interesting. I’ll have to put this book on my must-read list.
do that. it’s one of the great american novels post 1990.
Reamde is the most adaptable of his books I’d think…
Epic TV show adaptable.
Okay, move along, there are some repeats of Two And A Half Men that’ll suit you just fine.
This is going to be some interesting casting. They almost have to go with an unknown for the lead. Hiro Protagonist is Half Japanese and half black and there aren’t any current significant actors who fit that description.
an unknown…. or will smith!
Let’s just hope they don’t put some thug rapper type in the role and try to glorify thugs like they did in Attack the Block. A movie about a white girl with a black guy with built-in Taco Bell product placement money sounds like a wet dream for a movie exec. Snow Crash deserves better.
i think you’ll find that mr joe cornish has access to a computer, and may in fact be reading these and other comments (hello mr joe cornish, and good luck!) so any advice like this is probably a good thing
i’m surprised that nobody’s yet mentioned the anti-hero and the fact that he’s a nuclear power. who in hell’s going to be playing *him*?? you’re basically looking for an aleut, and one with no evidence of having a neck – just enough muscle to go straight from shoulders to head.
the only serious problem that i have with such an amazing, complex, rich and awe-inspiring project is that it could potentially be utterly ruined by scenes of shockingly violent on-screen death by sword.
in the reader’s imagination, if you’ve never actually seen anyone have their head cut off by a sword, it’s fairly easy to gloss over those simple words written on a page. however if that was actually depicted in the film, not only would it end up with an extreme rating but i’m sure that many people would find it hard to consider watching it. i own over 400 sci-fi books, and i love the idea of this book being adapted to film, but i tell you, i accidentally got that film “samurai” and i sure as hell couldn’t watch it.
See Highlander – “There can be only one!” Or Game of Thrones. A lot of death by sword and decapitation depicted.
Daniel Dae Kim could do it, Daniel Henney or Andy Lau; John Legend has asiatic features and looks perfect (no idea if he can act).
Zodiac would be adaptable, being entirely real-and-current-world, but frankly it’s just not that good a story. If NS is going to the movies, I’d love for it to be Snow Crash or Diamond Age. (Reamde, with it’s almost globe-spanning settings and long action set-piece storyline, would probably end up blowing any studio budget for a first-time writer, although I agree that it’s eminently filmable and if done right would be an absolute blast.)
Sounds ambitious.
Good for them.
I just wonder when Paramount will create a Kickstarter account to actually pay for it?
Ok. But will the studio white wash Hiro? You know Hollywood isn’t keen on hiring Asians in lead roles.
“For one thing, Hiro’s explicitly described as being black.”
Technically, his father was black and his mother was Japanese. There’s even a scene where a VR receptionist tries to match his ethnicity.
Sounds like a great choice to me. Attack the Block is awesome and I could see some of the fun and vigor working perfectly here.
They got a really talented filmmaker to try and do it, but it’s still a very hard book to adapt, the visual style and overall tone would be hard to capture.
Honestly, doing it as an insane animated film makes more sense than anything else, but Hollywood doesn’t like to make R rated animated films.
Maybe if Cornish is really good with green screen and get’s help from Edgar Wright on stuff, he can pull this off.
I also thought this would only ever come out as an animation. Would be good to see it done well but people ARE going to draw matrix parallels, perhaps animation would be better?
Marcus Chong (Tank from The Matrix) would have been a perfect Hiro if the had filmed the movie when it was initially optioned.
Donald Glover as Hiro. Just watch Community, he’s perfect-o.
Donald Glover is perfect casting, the guy is a breakout star waiting to happen.
Corbin Bleu as Hiro. Calling it now.
Good for Paramount for taking a risk, good for Kennedy/Marshall. For this book, you need someone who loves sci-fi, can keep the budget as low as possible, and has a sense of humor, and Cornish clearly has all three.
If I recall correctly, he is half black, half japanese. (so yes, you are correct that he is half asian). I’m wondering who they’ll get to play the huge Aleut…