The Glade 4.0

Holy crap they're adapting Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash?! Time to go crazy—with excitement, honestly! Deadline is reporting that Paramount is developing the adaptation, and has been playing with the rights to it since it came out way back in 1992. Not only that, but the project is now back on the burner, with Joe Cornish—the British director coming off of the highly acclaimed sci-fi indie hit Attack the Block—attached to write and direct. Even better yet is who is producing, which just makes this some of the best damn news I've heard in a while. I don't care if it's another adaptation, this is one I've been waiting for, I say bring it on!

The report says that the project is now in development with the legendary Kathleen Kennedy (of War of the Worlds, Benjamin Button, Tintin, War Horse, Lincoln recently) and Kennedy/Marshall producing, backed by Paramount Pictures. "Kennedy introduced Cornish to the book, he committed and it is now back at Paramount and is a priority." Excellent. It has been hot industry buzz to see what Cornish is taking on next following Attack the Block, which was an impressive, kick *** feature debut for him. And following in the footsteps of breakout directors like Marc Webb and Gareth Edwards (on Godzilla), it's now Cornish's turn to take on a big, bold sci-fi adaptation and hopefully deliver something as awesome—if not more so—as Attack the Block. These are the only details so far, that Cornish will write & direct and is currently working.

Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash was published in 1992 and follows the character Hiro Protagonist in a future world where there's an internet-like virtual world called the Metaverse everyone plugs into. "In reality, Hiro Protagonist delivers pizza for Uncle Enzo’s CosoNostra Pizza Inc., but in the Metaverse he’s a warrior prince. Plunging headlong into the enigma of a new computer virus that's striking down hackers everywhere, he races along the neon-lit streets on a search-and-destroy mission for the shadowy virtual villain threatening to bring about infocalypse." (Synopsis via Amazon) In the Metaverse, Snow Crash is a drug that infects and kills its users in real life, and Hiro goes to investigate the mystery of this virtual virus.

Snow Crash is one of my all-time favorite books, I read it intensely when I was younger. I love the world Stephenson creates and how twisted and funky and futuristic the story is. From the moment I first got into it, I thought this would make for a fascinating, brilliant, exciting sci-fi movie. It has a few conventional action set pieces, but tons of visual ideas that would be amazing, including the Metaverse. There's a badass biker villain, and Hiro reminds me of Neo in a way, almost like Keanu Reeves (you never know?) could play him. I am very excited to see how this turns out and will be following all developments closely. Thoughts?