taking a life on its own. If it had been different, I wouldn't probably
be here. But it can be safe to say that "Johnny Mnemonic" has been
the optimal screen experience so far.
Robert (Longo, the film director) and I kind of had a mutual
experience with it. We first tried to make a screen adaptation of
"Johnny Mnemonic" back in 1989, so we started pitching it around
film companies, asking for money. Didn't work out. We realized
afterwards that our major mistake was asking too little money.
Our aim back then was to make a little art movie, we figured that
we would need less than 2 million dollars. Jean-Luc Godard's
"Alphaville" was our main inspiration back then. We should have
asked more money.
We went through several script drafts and stages. It became very
painful pursuing the project. If it were just for me, I would have
given up long ago. It was really Robert's faith and persistence
in 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 got
made. One was "Burning Chrome" (ED.Kathryn Bigelow was
involved 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 that
these projects have been... developed to death. It was getting
more and more frustrating, and I didn't like that.
Have you ever been involved in any other movie or TV project
before that ?
I was gonna write a story for the "Max Headroom" series, but the
network pulled the plug. My friend John Shirley did a couple of
scripts for them. He's the one who convinced me I should have
written one, too.
The only thing which was left of your script for "Alien3" was the
prisoners with the bar code tattooed on the back of their necks.
What do you think in retrospect of this misadventure ?
My script for "Alien3" was kind of Tarkovskian. Vincent Ward
(ED.the director of "The Navigator") came late to the project
