Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash is getting a TV adaptation by Joe Cornish and Michael Bacall

Over the past few years, Neal Stephenson’s 1992 sci-fi novel Snow Crash had been talked about being developed as a film. It languished in development for a while, but it now seems it will be getting a TV adaptation which I feel is a much better fit for the story.

HBO Max is working on a new TV show from writer Michael Bacall (21 Jump Street), director Joe Cornish (The Kid Who Would Be King), and Paramount TV according to Deadline.

After the Internet, what came next?
Enter the Metaverse – cyberspace home to avatars and software daemons, where anything and just about everything goes. Newly available on the Street – the Metaverse’s main drag – is Snow Crash, a cyberdrug. Trouble is Snow Crash is also a computer virus – and something more. Because once taken it infects the person behind the avatar. Snow Crash bleeds into reality.
Which is really bad news for Hiro – freelance hacker and the Metaverse’s best swordfighter (he wrote the code) – and Y. T. – skateboard kourier, street imp and mouthy teenage girl – because reality was shitty enough before someone started messing with it . . .

The book was nominated for both the British Science Fiction Award in 1993, and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1994.

Bacall and Cornish will executive produce with Robinson, Marshall and Robert Zotnowski. Stephenson also will executive produce. Paramount TV is the studio

Lots of potential here for a great TV show, although a lot could depend on how they visualise the Metaverse in the show.