WG: Yeah, I've got a new answer. A decade ago, cyberpunk was a
literary term but today, the first definition of it should be of
or pertaining to "bohemia with computers", or the "underground
with computers". As to what it is, it's like, "who are these
people?" I mean, I've never met any real cyberpunks. The closest
I've come is people who like to dress up like cyberpunks, well,
hackers, you meet people like Phiber Optik, he dresses like a
little hip-hop kid, who wears his baseball cap backwards and has
baggy pants, he doesn't look like a cyberpunk, but I think we
can't really see what it's like now, and I suspect in fifty years
that cyberpunk will be seen as the precursor to something much
bigger. It's like a beatnik in a coffeehouse, which in and of
itself is not that exciting, but is considered a vital link to
things like the Beatles and LSD and so forth. Cyberpunk isn't a
big deal now but it may lead to something bigger in the future.
It's not going to come about until user interfaces have evolved
so that there's no learning curve in accessing the Net.
X: How's the screenplay for "Johnny Mnemonic" coming along? Is it
in production yet?
WG: It's in pre-production. When I was in Toronto, the director,
a producer and a storyboard guy were holed up in a hotel doing
the most *amazingly great* sketches for what it's going to look
like. It would not look like Blade Runner. It's like the people
working it all have tattoos that say "not like Blade Runner".
X: How exactly would you go about doing that? Blade Runner is
pretty firmly established as the cyberpunk film canon.
WG: Well one thing you do is everything's overlit...
X: Make everything ultrabright?
WG: Yeah. It looks kind of like Akira, only the characters don't
have those *big eyes*? It's quite violent.
X: Who's directing it? Did Abel Ferrara take the project?
WG: Abel Ferrara might be making a film of "New Rose Hotel", but
I don't want anything to do with it. "Johnny Mnemonic" is
happening because Robert Longo, the painter, has wanted to make a
feature film for a long time. Val Kilmer's signed to star, and
the bad guy who isn't in the original short story, is a bounty
hunter called "Street Preacher", he's a Christian fundamentalist
bounty hunter. The last time I talked to the producers it sounded
like they were shooting for Dolph Lundgren. Street Preacher's
heavy, scary but also very funny. At one point ICE-T was
interested in playing "J-Bone", the leader of the Lo Teks, and he
