Product DescriptionAn Excerpt from the book-CANNES. William Gibson was in Cannes in May 1994 to promotethe filming of "Johnny Mnemonic", a $26 million science fictionmovie based on his short story, and starring megastar KeanuReeves as the main character. Directed by the concept artist (andGibson's pal) Robert Longo - with a few music video and TV credits,but for the first time in charge of a feature, the film also stars Ice-T,Dolph Lundgren, Takeshi Kitano (of the cult "Sonatine"), Udo Kier,Henry Rollins and Dina Meyer. William Gibson also wrote thescreenplay of his original story, which was published in the anthology"Burning Chrome". "Johnny Mnemonic" goes into wide releasein current 1995.In this interview, William Gibson talks at length about "JohnnyMnemonic", movies, SF, net culture and issues.What are your initial impressions on how "Johnny Mnemonic" isturning out ?I have just seen the pre-assembled 10-minute show reel. I think it isfantastic! It felt very good seeing the universe of "Johnny Mnemonic"taking a life on its own. If it had been different, I wouldn't probablybe here. But it can be safe to say that "Johnny Mnemonic" has beenthe optimal screen experience so far.Robert (Longo, the film director) and I kind of had a mutualexperience with it. We first tried to make a screen adaptation of"Johnny Mnemonic" back in 1989, so we started pitching it aroundfilm companies, asking for money. Didn't work out. We realizedafterwards that our major mistake was asking too little money.Our aim back then was to make a little art movie, we figured thatwe would need less than 2 million dollars. Jean-Luc Godard's"Alphaville" was our main inspiration back then. We should haveasked more money.We went through several script drafts and stages. It became verypainful pursuing the project. If it were just for me, I would havegiven up long ago. It was really Robert's faith and persistencein getting this film done that made it possible.Have you written any film scripts before, besides this and the ill-fated drafts for "Alien3"?Yeah, I have done a couple of screen adaptations that never gotmade. One was "Burning Chrome" (ED.Kathryn Bigelow wasinvolved in it for a while) and the other was "Neuro-Hotel".What happened ?I don't really feel like talking about them. Let's just say thatthese projects have been... developed to death. It was gettingmore and more frustrating, and I didn't like that.