Snow Crash Film Adaptation Gets Attack the Block’s Joe Cornish as Director

Fans of author Neal Stephenson should prick up their ears: Joe Cornish has apparently been tapped to direct a forthcoming film adaptation of Stephenson’s classic novel Snow Crash. If you love cyberpunk set in a viciously consumer-driven vision of America, then you’ll love this.

Cornish’s directorial debut was with the critically acclaimed and commercial flop Attack the Block. Though it failed to perform well at the box office, the sci-fi comedy was something of a cult hit and holds a 90% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Given the film’s dark humor and sci-fi setting, Cornish seems like a good choice to tackle Stephenson’s sprawling book.

Here’s how Deadline, who broke the story on Cornish’s involvement, describe Snow Crash.

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.

That sounds about right.

Interestingly, this has not been the first time a Snow Crash movie has been attempted. Over at Badass Digest, Devin Faraci provides a little background:

Paramount has had Snow Crash for a while, and at one point the guy who wrote The Day After Tomorrow would adapt it while the guy who directed Demolition Man would direct. That certainly would have been an interesting take on the material, which some believe is essentially unfilmable.

While that would certainly have been interesting, Cornish’s project sounds pretty exciting. We’ll have to keep an eye on this one.

(Deadline via Coming Soon, Badass Digest, image via Sparky)

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