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SYFY WIRE Robin

WIRE Buzz: Snow Crash TV series in the works; Robin's 80th birthday bash; more

By Josh Grossberg
Snow Crash Hero

Now here's a Hiro we can believe in.

One of sci-fi author Neal Stephenson's most heralded works, Snow Crash, is headed to the small screen, courtesy of HBO Max.

According to Deadline, the streaming service has enlisted Paramount TV, 21 Jump Street scribe Michael Bacall, and Attack the Block director Joe Cornish to adapt the 1992 dystopian cyberpunk classic.

Snow Crash

Published in 1992, Snow Crash is an epic adventure set in the 21st century after a global economic collapse when big business reigns, everything has become privatized, and people (even armies) live in sovereign gated communities called burbclaves. Enter Hiro Protagonist, a hacker and pizza delivery driver who works for the Mafia and whose avatar is a warrior prince in the Metaverse, a virtual-reality successor to the internet.

In the Metaverse, Hiro's offered Snow Crash, a narcotic that turns out to be a datavirus. When the drug takes out a fellow hacker, Hiro and a younger skater/courier named Y.T. embark on a mission to stop an assassin that's planning to use Snow Crash to bring about an "Infocalypse."

Frank Marshall, the legendary producer behind Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park, and the Bourne movies, among others, will oversee the series, while The L Word's Angela Robinson will serve as showrunner. Stephenson, whose other cyberpunk novels include The Diamond Age and Cyptonomicon, will executive-produce.


Holy birthday, Batman!

Hard to believe, but after making a splash on the March 6, 1940, cover of Detective Comics No. 38, Dick Grayson, aka Robin the Boy Wonder, is an octogenarian now.

And to celebrate this awesome milestone and his legacy as arguably the greatest sidekick in comic book history, per The Hollywood Reporter, DC is rolling out the Robin 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular.

The anthology will hit comic book shops and the web on March 11, 2020, and offer an inside peek from creators including Marv Wolfman, Chuck Dixon, Mikel Janin, James Tynion IV, and current Detectives Comics writer Peter J. Tomasi. It will also include new short stories honoring various iterations of the character from the original Dick Grayson on up to Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Teen Titans' Robin Damian Wayne.


The Simpsons is not only turning things upside down as far as celebrity cameos, but it's adding a little Hollywood royalty as well.

Entertainment Weekly reports that Stranger Things star David Harbour and Oscar winner Cate Blanchett will guest-star on the perennial animated comedy next year. The Lord of the Rings actress, whose most recent big-screen turns include voicing the sinister python Kaa in Mowgli: Legend of the Jungle and starring in Where'd You Go, Bernadette, will appear in what is shaping up to be Season 31's finale.

Cate Blanchett

In "The Way of the Dog," Blanchett will voice a canine psychologist named Elaine who tries to help Santa's Little Helper out of a depression.

"She determines if there's a trauma in his past that they have to go solve, which actually goes back to the first episode of the series," Simpsons executive producer Al Jean tells EW, noting fans will be getting "a callback that is older than the Internet" itself.

David Harbour SNL

As for Harbour, the Stranger Things sheriff will turn up as an alternate version of Mr. Burns in a Season 32 episode later in the year, a spoof of Undercover Boss.

We can't wait to see what Smithers thinks of that!