Mark Wahlberg and Liam Neeson joining Canadian film ‘Neuromancer’?

Rumours are swirling that Mark Wahlberg ("The Fighter") and Liam Neeson ("Taken") are in talks to play the leads in Canadian director Vicenzo Natali's adaptation of William Gibson's seminal cyberpunk novel "Neuromancer."

The Movie Hole is reporting that Wahlberg and Neeson may be in discussions to join the Canadian film as the titular elite hacker and his mysterious employer, respectively. Wahlberg would play Case, a drug addict and former underworld hacker who has lost the ability to "jack in" to cyberspace because of a deal gone bad. Neeson would play Armitage, an enigmatic former spy who offers to restore Case's hacking ability in exchange for his help.

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Set in a distant and dystopian future where massive corporations wield more power than governments, "Neuromancer" follows a crew of hackers and cyborgs attempting to pull off the ultimate cyberspace heist. Along with the movie "Blade Runner," Gibson's award-winning novel is considered one of the most important and influential cyberpunk works ever produced. The landmark Canadian book influenced movies like "Hackers," "The Matrix," and even real-world internet culture (the term "cyberspace" was coined by Gibson in the novel).

However, despite this popularity and influential status, "Neuromancer" has long been considered unfilmable. The 1995 adaptation and commercial failure of "Johnny Mnemonic," another Gibson novel, scared many prospective filmmakers and producers off of "Neuromancer." Still, several filmmakers have tried and failed to bring the ambitious science fiction project to the big screen over the years, including music video directors Chris Cunningham and Joseph Kahn ("Torque," "Detention"), before "Cube" and "Splice" filmmaker Natali came aboard in 2010.

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Since then, producers have been attempting to secure the $60 million budget for the movie (a record for a Canadian film), and Natali has been working closely with author Gibson on the screenplay. In May, mega-producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura joined the project as a producer and essentially guaranteed that the production would move ahead soon. Di Bonaventura, who worked with Wahlberg on "Shooter" and "Four Brothers," was instrumental in getting the first "Matrix" movie produced and also secured the "Harry Potter" rights for Warner Bros.

"Neuromancer" currently has no release date.