Apple TV+'s "forgotten" sci-fi show finally gets an update

It's almost a year since Apple announced that one of the most hotly-anticipated sci-fi shows is coming to its TV+ service, but we've heard barely a peep on it since.

The tech giant revealed that it had signed the rights to William Gibson's Neuromancer and that it's being produced by Anonymous Content, the company behind Mr Robot and True Detective. But at that time, there were no clues on release date or even when production was due to start.

The only main news we learned since was that it will star Masters of the Air's Callum Turner in the lead role, but little else otherwise.

Well, now it seems that Turner himself has released a couple of interesting updates and things are looking more positive.

During the Sundance Film Festival, he told ScreenRant that filming is already underway and that he's actually finished a two week shoot for the show in Tokyo. He has also explained that its showrunners, Graham Roland and J.D. Dillard, have done a great job in adapting Gibson's "poetic" novel to the small screen.

In all honesty, that's not a hell of a lot, but at least we know now that things are progressing. It's unlikely we'll see anything on the streaming service until 2026 at the earliest, especially given the amount of post-production and effects work that'll be needed, but it's a big step in the right direction.

Neuromancer on Apple TV+

As well as executive produce, Dillard is directing the first episode of Neuromancer. He has previously directed episodes of Utopia and The Twilight Zone. His co-showrunner, Roland, co-created and wrote Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan for Prime Video, and also worked as a writer on Lost.

When the Neuromancer TV series was first announced, they jointly said that the book has "inspired so much of the science fiction that’s come after it" and that they were "looking forward to bringing television audiences into Gibson’s definitive cyberpunk world".

Hopefully, their ambition will result in yet another spectacular sci-fi show for the service. It is already home to Silo, For All Mankind, Foundation, and Severance, and while Sunny hasn't been picked up for a second season, it showed that Apple isn't adverse to making risks with genre television.

Long may that continue.