With the announcment of Dreamworks casting Scarlett Johansson playing the lead in the live adaptation of Ghost In The Shell, various sources online expressed their dismay over the news, blaming Hollywood for "whitewashing" Masamune Shirow's beloved cyberpunk manga.
This began all the way back in 2008 when Steven Spielberg, an avid fan of Ghost In The Shell's story bought the rights with an intent to make it a live action film, with Jamie Moss (Street Kings, X-Men: First Class) in charge of the screenplay. A year later, he was replaced by Laeta Kalogridis, who was the screenwriter for 2010's Shutter Island. The title remained dormant years after until in early last year, news that Rupert Sanders (Snow White and The Huntsman) was reported on board the project as a director.
Months passed, news that there may already be an actress to play the lead role: Margot Robbie was the top contender, apparently already in negotiations with Dreamworks. To no avail, news soon followed that she already dropped all talks with the studio, instead signing up for Warner Bros/DC's Suicide Squad.
Fast forward to last week in a surprising announcement, Scarlett Johansson had already bagged the role.
Despite receiving backlash from hardcore fans from all around the world, the movie is still pushing through. So we've created a primer on Ghost In The Shell for those who aren't familiar with it. We cover origins, past films and current news.
Ghost In The Shell, originally a series of manga released by creator Masamune Shirow, published in Young Magazine between 1989 and 1990. The title gained its notoriety in 1995 after it was released as an animated feature film directed by Mamoru Oshii. An Animax series followed in 2002 titled Ghost In The Shell: Standalone Complex and ran for two season (the second season titled Second Gig). Another animated feature was released in 2004, Ghost In The Shell: Innocence which mostly was about the main character's partner, Batou. In 2006 came the last animated feature titled Standalone Complex: Solid State Society. In 2014, a prequel mini series titled Ghost In The Shell: Arise and was released in installments from June 22 to September 6 last year.
Possible spoilers Ahead: Ghost In The Shell, 1995 OVA
In all of Ghost In The Shell's incarnations, the plot usually revolves around cybercrimes committed in futuristic Japan. In Oshii's 1995 film, Major Motoko Kusanagi and her team of covert operatives deal with The Puppet Master, a criminal guilty of hacking "cyberbrains". The Puppet Master, an artificial intelligence that thinks it has its own spirit or "ghost" assembles itself and escapes from a factory. Kusanagi, a full cyborg is alarmed and goes on the hunt to find the truth about The Puppet Master.
In other current GITS news apart from the Hollywood adaptation starring Johansson, Japan's Production I.G., the animation studio responsible for the 1995 OVA and the Animax series has announced that they are making another animated feature has provided the public with a short teaser:
Stay tuned for more news on Ghost In The Shell here at Franchise Herald.
