XA Deadline report says Paramount Pictures is working with CD Projekt Red on a live-action movie set in the Cyberpunk 2077 universe, with Lorenzo di Bonaventura, whose previous films include a pile of Transformers movies, a couple GI Joe flicks, and the 2005 Doom movie starring The Rock, attached to produce.
CD Projekt Red co-CEO Michał Nowakowski confirmed the report on X:
There’s really no more detail at this point, so instead of talking about that I’m going to take a hard swerve and remind everyone that the perfect cyberpunk movie already exists, and it even stars Johnny Silverhand himself, Keanu Reeves—as another guy named Johnny who’s having a rough time in the cyber-future, believe it or not.
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It’s called Johnny Mnemonic, and folks, it is cinema.
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Johnny Mnemonic, based on a William Gibson short story of the same name, came out in 1995 and is set in the year 2021, which as you may know has already come and gone. Reeves plays a “mnemonic courier” who transports sensitive information in his head—he can carry nearly 80 gigs of data!—because the internet is an insecure digital goat rodeo filled with scammers, grifters, hackers, and various other forms of criminal lowlife. (The movie sure got that right, at least.)
Johnny (Mnemonic, not Silverhand) takes on a high-risk, high-reward mission, which naturally goes south almost immediately: He’s hunted by the yakuza, betrayed by his handler, rescued by a sexy cyborg, gets his ass beat by a preacher, is saved by a dolphin, and ultimately destroys capitalism. Something like that, anyway—it’s been a while.
This is what the internet should have been
I did in fact pay money to see Johnny Mnemonic in the theater: I’m not sure why, really, except that Reeves was still flying high after Speed, and the Johnny Mnemonic cast was absolutely stacked:
- Keanu Reeves
- Dolph Lundgren
- Ice-T
- Ice-T’s heroin-addicted dolphin
- Dina Meyer
- Udo Kier
- Henry Rollins
- Shannon Tweed’s sister
- Von Flores
- Don Francks
- Takeshi Kitano
Okay, look, it might seem silly now, but trust me, in 1995 this was a goddamn who’s-who of people who were cool and not too expensive in 1995. And while the film was, uh, not particularly well received (but it did make money!), I dug it. I was baffled by the dolphin thing and had no idea what the hell Dolph Lundgren was even doing there, but I distinctly recall leaving the theater thinking, that was fun!
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“I want room service!”
Is that a recommendation? One hundred percent! There’s no word on when the Cyberpunk 2077 film will hit the screens, but that doesn’t matter because you can watch Johnny Mnemonic right now, on Netflix, Prime, Apple, Tubi, and probably other places too. [The B&W director’s cut included as an extra if you buy the movie on iTunes is the best way to watch—Ed.]
You might even find a DVD (or VHS, if you’re really lucky) for 50 cents at your local thrift shop! If you do, grab it—trust me, you’re gonna love it.
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Yup, that just happened.
