William Gibson Interviewed

I have just seen the pre-assembled 10-minute show reel. I think it is fantastic! It felt very good seeing the universe of 'Johnny Mnemonic' 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.