William Gibson’s seminal cyberpunk classic, Neuromancer, is finally on its way to the big screen, reports Slash Film. Plans for a film adaptation of the visionary 1984 novel, which is best known for its predictions about the Internet, and is even the source of the term “cyberspace,” have been floating around for years. But so far they have been mired by false-starts. This most recent revelation, however, makes it all but certain that film will actually become a reality.

According to a press released, sales distribution rights for a variety of markets were successfully secured at the Cannes International Film Festival, which is taking place this week. Filming is scheduled to begin in 2012, and take place in numerous locations around the globe, including Canada, Istanbul, London and Tokyo. Visual effects work has already begun.

“Neuromancer” will be directed by Vincent Natali, director of Cube and Splice. Natali also wrote the screen play adaptation with the blessing of Gibson himself.

As any sci-fi fan knows, the significance of Neuromancer (the book) is staggering, and hard to over state. In addition to kicking off the cyberpunk movement, the novel was the first to ever win the “triple crown” of science fiction awards: the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award and the Phillip K. Dick Award. Neuromancer has had broad influence on the science fiction genre. And some even say that Gibson’s vision of “cyberspace” even helped shape the Internet as we know it.

According to Natali, the time is ripe for brining Gibson’s masterpiece to the masses — and this is primarily due to the influence of a far younger sci-fi giant, The Matrix.

“…The Matrix, for instance, gives you is the opportunity to make ‘Neuromancer’ in a culture that is already aware of what The Matrix is,” said Natali in an interview with Slash Film last year. “I mean, the very word ‘matrix’ is in Neuromancer. It was borrowed by the Wachowski brothers for their film. I think that’s a good thing, because I don’t even know how someone would have been able to make that film 10 years ago or 15 years ago, because it’s so abstract. I don’t even know how people understood the book when it first came out. I think I read it in the late 1980s, but in 1984, how would people even understand it, because it was just so far ahead of the curve?”

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