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(1948– ). Canadian author.
Appeared in: "Everything Must Go" (1993), episode of Wild
Palms; episode of TechnoPolitics (1993); Mon Amour Mon Parapluie
(short) (Giada Dobrzenska 2001); "Bestseller Samtalen—William Gibson" (2003),
episode of Bestseller; episode of The Screen Savers (2003);
episode of Webnation (2007); "William Gibson" (2010), episode of A
Window Looking In.
Appeared in documentaries: Yorkville: Hippie Haven
(tv documentary) (1967); Decade: 1980-1989 (1989); Cyberpunk (1990);
Brave New Worlds: The Science Fiction Phenomenon (Paul Oremland 1993); The
Making of Johnny Mnemonic (1995); Rebels: A Journey Underground/Welcome
to Cyberia (1998); The Sci-Fi Files, 4: Living in the Future (1998);
The X-Files Movie Special (Thomas C. Grane 1998); No Maps for These
Territories (Mark Neale 2000); Cyberman (Peter Lynch 2002); Almost
Real: Connecting in a Wired World (Ann Shin 2002); "Keanu Reeves" (2007),
episode of Filmography.
Films based on his work: Neuromancer: A Cyberpunk
Role-Playing Adventure (computer game) (1988); Tomorrow Calling (tv
short) (Tim Leandro 1993); Johnny Mnemonic: The Interactive Action Movie
(computer game) (Douglas Gayeton 1995); New Rose Hotel (Abel Ferrara
1998).
When Gibson came to Hollywood in the late 1980s, he seemed
ideally positioned to become a successful screenwriter. In addition to his
demonstrated skills in crafting involving plots and conveying them in memorable
prose, he also had long experience as an artist, having contributed many
cartoons to science fiction fanzines, so he could bring a strong visual sense
to creating stories on film. And, having tired of writing stories set in the
future world of his spectacular debut novel, Neuromancer, and not sure
about what he should write next, Gibson needed someone who could tell him what
to do—and in Hollywood, there is never any shortage of that.
Gibson's first screenwriting credit might have been an
episode of Max Headroom (1987-1988), but that quirky series was
cancelled before he could get involved. He then landed a more prestigious
assignment—to write the third Alien film—and the edited version of
his screenplay now available online proved an unremarkable but credible piece
of work. Unfortunately, the story he was given to execute did not feature the
franchise's iconic centerpiece, Ellen Ripley, because Sigourney
WEAVER had announced she was
not interested in coming back; when she changed her mind, an entirely new story
and screenplay had to be devised, but Gibson declined the opportunity to keep
working on the project. Instead, he kept busy by writing eight or ten other
screenplays based on some of his own stories, including "New Rose Hotel,"
though the film version that would eventually emerge did not employ a Gibson
screenplay. Discreetly, Gibson has said little about his personal experiences
in Hollywood, though according to fan writer David Langford, he once "muttered"
that "meeting a producer, he knew exactly how a virus felt when it met with its
own specific antibody"—suggesting that the encounter was far from enjoyable.
Finally, a miracle occurred, as an adaptation of his story
"Johnny Mnemonic" was greenlighted for production and an accommodating
director—Gibson's friend, artist Robert
LONGO—was
assigned to direct. Gibson's screenplay, published when the movie was
released, displays his keen awareness of the requirements of contemporary
filmmaking, as he added a new character to the story, the assassin Street
Preacher, to ratchet up the violence, and he improved his story's McGuffin by
making the sought-after data in Johnny's head the cure for a debilitating
disease that is endemic in Gibson's dark future; he also added a touch of
cyberspace to the story for all of the long-suffering fans patiently waiting
for the film version of Neuromancer, now entering its twenty-eighth year
in development hell. (Sure, the Internet Movie Database says it's going to come
out in 2014, but I'll believe it when I see it.) Unfortunately, even a
brilliant script needs a talented lead performer to bring it to life, and the
perpetually inert Keanu REEVES most definitely did not fit the bill; further,
the film was artlessly recut by nervous producers to additionally dampen the
limited emotional impact of any film being carried by Reeves. It's still a
decent film, but the Japanese cut is better, and what Gibson wrote and Longo
directed would have been better still.
Escaping from Hollywood to again focus on writing novels,
Gibson was lured back into screenwriting when he ran into the producer of The
X-Files, Chris Carter, who recruited him to write for the series; this
time, however, he took on a collaborator, Tom Maddox, and it is Gibson's usual
habit to let his collaborators do most of the work, making the results less
interesting than the projects he completes by himself. By far the best of the
two episodes they scripted was the first, "Kill Switch," which invites
consideration as the first adaptation of Neuromancer, its story warped
to fit into the format of a present-day television series. But it is also a
story about an artificial intelligence struggling to become a self-aware,
independent agent in cyberspace, both aided and opposed by various human
operatives, and it includes a nice sequence featuring David
DUCHOVNY's Mulder trapped in a
nightmarish but computer-generated hospital. However, their second script,
"First Person Shooter," is all sound and fury signifying nothing, with a
colorful, violent story about virtual-reality gaming that never manages to make
any sense. Gibson indicates that he was preparing to write a script for
another Carter series, Harsh Realm, but when that series died as well,
he instead went to work on the novel that would be published in 2003 as Pattern
Recognition, finally landing him on the best-seller lists and seemingly
ensuring that he would never again have to endure the humiliation of writing
for the screen. Rather, it seemed, he would be limiting himself to appearances
on talk shows and documentaries, most memorably No Maps for These
Territories, a feature-length documentary consisting entirely of footage of
Gibson in thoughtful conversation as he is driven through various
neighborhoods. But the lure of Tinseltown must be strong, for Gibson reported
via Twitter in late 2011 that he had just completed a "spec script," hoping
that it would soon be produced. And this conclusively demonstrates that,
despite reports to the contrary, William Gibson is actually a very optimistic
writer.
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