Scarlett Johansson Offered Ghost in the Shell

[ManOnTheWave]

http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/34325/johansson-wanted-for-ghost-in-the-shell

http://deadline.com/2014/10/will-smith-tom-hardy-eyeing-suicide-squad-at-warner-bros-853364/

I'm surprised to hear this thing is still in development. It was supposed to come out years ago.

My personal desire would be for the people making this to go The Wolverine route, and cast Japanese actors who can perform in English. However, that's not going to happen, and after Lucy and three appearances as Black Widow, Johansson would probably be a decent fit. I can't really think of another actress who would fit Major Kusanagi Motoko.

Apparently she's been offered $10 million but has yet to sign.

 

[Reverend]

Damn. I was hoping this one would stay in development hell. :/

Out of curiosity, dose anyone know of a live-action adaptation of an anime that *didn't* turn out as complete tosh?

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Damn. I was hoping this one would stay in development hell. :/

Out of curiosity, dose anyone know of a live-action adaptation of an anime that *didn't* turn out as complete tosh?

I don't think there have been very many outside of Japan.

 

[Reverend]

Off the top of my head I can only think of 'Dragon Ball Z' (which I never watched) and 'Blood The Last Vampire' which I got 40mins into before switching it off out of boredom. Not sure if 'The Last Airbender' counts as the cartoon wasn't an actual anime, but rather heavily inspired by anime & eastern culture in general. I think I heard somewhere that they're doing or have done an adaptation of 'Kite'. No clue what that's like but I'd be astonished if it's any good.

I think there's been about four or five separate attempts to make a live action 'Akira'. I can't see that going very well either. You'd need someone like Darren Aronofsky, Terry Gilliam or the the Wachowski siblings to even *attempt* it.

As for GitS...it's a tough one to adapt since the film version (never did read the original manga) is very disjointed and introspective, punctuated by a handful of memorable action sequences.

 

[Doctorwhovian]

There's been Lupin III and Yamato live-action projects that have done OK in Japan itself. There was also a Canadian/Japanese Gundam live-action film which had an original story instead of an animation, but turned out pretty bad regardless (and I think got stricken from Gundam canon)

The Dragonball movie was actually based on the earlier chapters of the manga (and the non-Z anime). So it's not really an adaptation of "Z" although if it had sequels I'm sure they would've dealt with that storyline.


The recent Tom Cruise movie Edge Of Tomorrow was based on a manga if I remember correctly but I think it didn't do too well at the box office.


Tobey Macquire has apparentally been trying to get Macross/Robotech made for ages, but it's probably caught up in that franchise's licensing nightmare.

 

[Christopher]

The recent Tom Cruise movie Edge Of Tomorrow was based on a manga if I remember correctly but I think it didn't do too well at the box office.

Close; it was based on a light novel (essentially a young-adult novel with illustrations) called All You Need is Kill.

And it was actually quite well-regarded by critics; Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 90% critic score and a 91% audience score. But it was horribly marketed, in large part because of the vague and unrepresentative title they gave it. The title's been blamed so much for the film's failure that the DVD cover art is built around the film's tagline "Live Die Repeat," as if that were the title, and only has "Edge of Tomorrow" in tiny print at the bottom. Some sites are actually listing its title as Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow now.

 

[Enterprise1701]

I can hardly imagine how this is going to work: Scarlett Johannson's character is a white American who is new to Japan and receives all the focus. Hooray.

 

[Kemaiku]

Live Die Repeat: Edge of Tomorrow
.

That's its UK title...now.

The strange thing is the movie was marketed and released as "Edge of Tomorrow" at the time. But when the DVD came out a couple of weeks ago, and the adverts for it started, they all have "Live. Die. Repeat." in large letters, often not bothering with the rest at all.

 

[Christopher]

I can hardly imagine how this is going to work: Scarlett Johannson's character is a white American who is new to Japan and receives all the focus. Hooray.

More likely they'll just set the story in the US. The core ideas of the story aren't necessarily bound to any given culture; the manga and the TV series are set in a fictitious Japanese city, while the anime feature films were set in Hong Kong.

Then again, Motoko has an artificial body, and I think it's implied that the appearance she's chosen is not her original one (I doubt she was born with purple hair), so there's no reason she couldn't have chosen a Caucasian appearance. Anime characters tend to look ethnically ambiguous anyway.

 

[Redfern]

Apropos of nothing, but in the original manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow, Kusanagi was mistaken for a high end "love doll"...by an employee of a robotics company that made, uh, cybernetic "companions". He was not just some dumb schlubb off the streets. The humorous encounter implies the Major's "outer chassis" is based upon a popular and mass produced "style". Even the very "dry" theatrical anime had a brief sequence with Motoko spotting another woman who looked just like her, again suggesting her appearance was not unique (even though what's "under the hood" is no doubt far more sophisticated than "consumer grade" hardware).

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[Mach5]

White Kusanagi...

Pass...

 

[Reverend]

I can hardly imagine how this is going to work: Scarlett Johannson's character is a white American who is new to Japan and receives all the focus. Hooray.

More likely they'll just set the story in the US. The core ideas of the story aren't necessarily bound to any given culture; the manga and the TV series are set in a fictitious Japanese city, while the anime feature films were set in Hong Kong.

Then again, Motoko has an artificial body, and I think it's implied that the appearance she's chosen is not her original one (I doubt she was born with purple hair), so there's no reason she couldn't have chosen a Caucasian appearance. Anime characters tend to look ethnically ambiguous anyway.

Don't know if it's the same in the Manga, but in the SAC anime it's implied that she lost her real body as a child, so unless they went to the trouble of custom building a body based on an aged extrapolation of her as a child...well, either way she never looked like that.

I think it's implied in the movie that it's a factory model. During that sequence on the barge she makes eye contact with someone wearing the exact same face, which may or may not have been symbolic rather than literal (the nature of identity and mirror images are very much a recurring theme in that film.)

Regardless, I don't have a fundamental problem with a non-Asian actress in the role...it just feels like another Hollywood whitewash and more than a little disrespectful to the source material. There's something quintessentially Japanese about the original that I'd hate to see eroded.

Mostly though I'm just expecting them to totally miss the point and just make it into a action movie spectacle.

 

[Christopher]

I have to admit, while I'm generally opposed to recasting nonwhite characters with white actors, I have a hard time getting worked up about seeing a Japanese comic or movie getting remade with an American cast and setting, because the Japanese have done it themselves, remaking King Lear as Ran, John Ford's Three Godfathers as Tokyo Godfathers, etc. Plenty of countries have remade and localized other countries' movies.

 

[Hartzilla2007]

I have to admit, while I'm generally opposed to recasting nonwhite characters with white actors, I have a hard time getting worked up about seeing a Japanese comic or movie getting remade with an American cast and setting, because the Japanese have done it themselves, remaking King Lear as Ran, John Ford's Three Godfathers as Tokyo Godfathers, etc. Plenty of countries have remade and localized other countries' movies.

Not to mention the weird plot similarities between Where No Man Has Gone Before and Akira

 

[{ Emilia }]

Damn. I was hoping this one would stay in development hell. :/

Out of curiosity, dose anyone know of a live-action adaptation of an anime that *didn't* turn out as complete tosh?

I think the live-action version of Rurouni Kenshin wasn't completely horrible considering how much of a classic the anime is. It enjoyed good critical reception.

I'd be interested in a live-action Ghost (I'm not really that much of a fan of animated movies. I just prefer live-action.) but I'd honestly rather have it cast with Japanese actors to avoid a too obvious Hollywoodization.

 

[intrinsical]

The only anime turned live action movie that I know of was Space Battleship Yamato. I kinda liked it.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I have to admit, while I'm generally opposed to recasting nonwhite characters with white actors, I have a hard time getting worked up about seeing a Japanese comic or movie getting remade with an American cast and setting, because the Japanese have done it themselves, remaking King Lear as Ran, John Ford's Three Godfathers as Tokyo Godfathers, etc. Plenty of countries have remade and localized other countries' movies.

While some bother me more than others (Akira is very much future Tokyo to me), I'm not sure I've always been dying to see a faithful live action version of the anime. I can always just go watch the anime version and they can do what they want with the new movie.

 

[Christopher]

The only anime turned live action movie that I know of was Space Battleship Yamato. I kinda liked it.

The Japanese have done live-action adaptations of a lot of anime and manga series. TV Tropes lists a bunch of anime and manga titles that have had live-action adaptations made in Japan or Hong Kong as well as the US.

 

[Enterprise1701]

I can hardly imagine how this is going to work: Scarlett Johannson's character is a white American who is new to Japan and receives all the focus. Hooray.

More likely they'll just set the story in the US. The core ideas of the story aren't necessarily bound to any given culture; the manga and the TV series are set in a fictitious Japanese city, while the anime feature films were set in Hong Kong.

Yeah, you're probably right.

 

[EmoBorg]

She would look good in a black short hair wig.