A little thin in the story department but terrific looking, BRZRKR is about an immortal demi-God employed to fight the US government’s bloodiest battles while he tries to solve the mystery of his origins (largely by ripping people’s arms off). Extreme, gory, cool and not for the weak-stomached, the comics are becoming a live-action Netflix movie starring Reeves in the lead role, plus a two-season Production I.G. anime series. Terminator: Zero’s Mattson Tomlin has written the movie screenplay and will showrun the anime.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley (1818)
A scientist playing God, a creature shunned by mankind… Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is unfamiliar to no-one, but is such a potent story that filmmakers still can’t resist it. Guillermo del Toro (Pinocchio, The Shape of Water, Pan’s Labyrinth) has been trying to make his Frankenstein for decades now, and thanks to his Netflix deal, it’s finally happening. Cast-wise, he’s booked the buzzy Jacob Elordi (Priscilla, Euphoria) to play the Creature, with Oscar Isaac (Dune, Ex Machina) as Dr Frankenstein, alongside Christoph Waltz, Mia Goth and more. Filming began in 2024 so don’t expect to see this until next year.
Mickey7 by Edward Ashton (2022)
Parasite director Bong Joon-Ho continues his class and capitalism theme in this adaptation of Edward Ashton’s Mickey7 (retitled Mickey 17 for the screen). It’s the story of a space worker who signs up for dangerous colonisation tasks on an alien planet that will kill him, but each time he dies, his consciousness is uploaded to his next clone. That anti-Capitalist premise alone makes it the perfect choice for the South Korean writer-director’s follow-up to his Best Picture-winner.
Robert Pattinson plays the titular lead Mickey, alongside Naomi Ackie (who is excellent, incidentally, in recent horror Blink Twice), Mark Ruffalo, Toni Collette, Steven Yeun and more. Originally set for release in 2024, expect to see this one at the end of January 2025.
Nightbitch by Rachel Yoder (2021)
Nightbitch joins Room, Tully, Prevenge and more as an inventive and darkly satirical look at early-years motherhood. Adapted from Rachel Yoder’s debut novel, it’s about a frustrated, isolated and exhausted stay-at-home mother (played in the movie by Arrival and American Hustle’s Amy Adams) who starts transforming into a dog. Adapted and directed by The Diary of a Teenage Girl and The Queen’s Gambit’s Marielle Heller, it’s due out in December 2024. See the first trailer here.
Neuromancer by William Gibson (1984)
It says a lot about how ludicrously ahead of his time William Gibson’s vision of the future was, that his 1980s future-tech novels can be adapted now and still not feel like clunky anachronisms. Apple TV+ already made one Gibson adaptation with the Chloe Moretz-starring The Peripheral, a show whose second season was sadly cancelled following pandemic and strike-related delays. The streamer’s next attempt is Neuromancer, adapted from Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk debut novel of the same name. The first in his Sprawl series, it’s the story of a cyberhacker, a virtual reality space, augmented humans, a data heist and the US military being shady – all the Gibson stalwarts. The 10-episode TV series was greenlit in early 2024, and is set to star Callum Turner and Brianna Middleton as the leads, with Graham Roland (Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan, Fringe) and Utopia and The Outsider director J.D. Dillard.
