Become a very technical boy with Emma and CJ as they break down how on Earth a $1.5 million pitch for a film of William Gibson’s short story Johnny Mnemonic became a $30 million Hollywood flick starring Keanu Reeves. They get into Gibson and director Robert Longo’s friendship, the fact a director’s cut does not really exist, and how sometimes editing is everything.

Content warnings for Johnny Mnemonic by William Gibson include: violence, cyberpunk gore, vaguely questionable portrayals of trans characters, and a junkie dolphin.

Content warnings for Johnny Mnemonic (1995) include: violence, cyberpunk gore, slightly more questionable portrayals of trans characters, memory loss, mourning the death of a child, an epidemic taking place in the early 2020’s (but not that one), and whatever the hell is going on with the Preacher.

The articles and resources Emma and CJ reference on this episode can be found here:

https://www.wired.com/1995/06/gibson-4/

https://www.wordyard.com/dmz/digicult/gibson-8-4-94.html

https://www.screenslate.com/articles/johnny-mnemonic-black-and-white-robert-longo-interview

https://web.archive.org/web/20070627074200/http://www.peak.sfu.ca/the-peak/98-3/issue7/gibson.html

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1995-05-24-fi-5524-story.html

https://legacy.aintitcool.com/node/5140

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/apr/30/johnny-mnmemonic-keanu-reeves-william-gibson

Smith PA, ed. Conversations with William Gibson / Edited by Patrick A. Smith. University Press of Mississippi; 2014.

You can find Emma on bluesky @crabmoney.bsky.social and CJ on most socials @nearfutures. CJ is a part of Sly Robot Games and you can find more of his work at https://cjlinton.com/ including his game Bring Down the House, which Emma loves dearly. Unnatural Selection is a part of the Moonshot Podcast Network. If you like what you’ve heard and was to support the network, you can become a patron at patreon.com/moonshotnetwork.

The music for this show was commissioned from and composed by Jake Loranger. You can check out more of his work at https://amaranthine.bandcamp.com