Apple TV’s Neuromancer Succeeds A Mark Wahlberg Film That Never Happened

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Dhruv is a Lead Writer in Screen Rant's New TV division. He has been consistently contributing to the website for over two years and has written thousands of articles covering streaming trends, movie/TV analysis, and pop culture breakdowns.
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Apple TV's upcoming cyberpunk show, Neuromancer, is adapting a record-breaking book that almost got a movie adaptation with Mark Wahlberg as its lead.

Apple TV offers a long line of compelling sci-fi shows, and its catalog will only grow with new series and returning dramas in the real future. However, among all these upcoming shows, the most exciting is Apple TV's adaptation of William Gibson's seminal sci-fi book, Neuromancer. Although Neuromancer was considered "unfilmable" for a long time, it is fascinating that Apple TV is finally attempting to bring it to the small screen.

Interestingly, even before the Apple TV adaptation, Neuromancer nearly got a big-screen iteration that starred Mark Wahlberg.

Long Before Apple TV Adapted Neuromancer, A Movie Adaptation Of The Cyberpunk Book Was Planned

William Gibson's Neuromancer was the first book to win three major literary awards:

The Hugo Award
The Nebula Award for Best Novel
The Philip K. Dick Award

To date, no other book has achieved the same feat, and Neuromancer still holds the three-award record. Given how Neuromancer served as the foundation for cyberpunk, it is hard not to agree that the book deserved every bit of acclaim and appreciation it received.

Considering its success, it is not surprising that several attempts have previously been made to bring the book to the screen, with one potentially starring Mark Wahlberg.

Before Apple TV set its eyes on the seminal cyberpunk novel, director Vincenzo Natali (of the Cube and Splice fame), was set to helm a big-screen Neuromancer adaptation. Natali even worked on the project for quite some time, and Mark Wahlberg and Liam Neeson were given offers to star in the movie (via The Guardian). However, Natali eventually backed out and became unavailable.

If the Neuromancer movie project had seen the light of day, it is possible that the Apple TV sci-fi show would never have happened. Or, it would have served more as a remake rather than a fresh take on the book.

Vincenzo Natali’s Neuromancer Movie Sounds Great, But The TV Format Seems Better Suited For The Book Adaptation

Considering Vincenzo Natali's work in weird yet fascinating sci-fi movies like Cube and Splice, it would have been interesting to see how he would have adapted William Gibson's Neuromancer. However, in hindsight, it is hard not to deny that Neuromancer is better off being adapted by Apple TV into a TV format.

William Gibson followed up Neuromancer with two other books:

Count Zero
Mona Lisa Overdrive

The books are often referred to as the Sprawl trilogy, and television's long-term storytelling format allows Apple TV to adapt all three with ease without being limited by a short runtime.

Neuromancer is expected to premiere on Apple TV in 2026.

Apple TV also has an impressive history of bringing high-concept sci-fi books to the small screen. Its success in the genre proves it can bring a worthy take on Neuromancer to the audiovisual medium. Even from a timeline standpoint, Neuromancer's exploration of AI seems more relevant for today's world.

Back when Vincenzo Natali was adapting it, Neuromancer still seemed fantastical and borderline out of step with reality. In today's world, though, the emerging discussions surrounding the growth of AI, the future of superintelligence, and the increasing dominance of megacorporations, Apple TV's Neuromancer is bound to hit hard.