For months, we’ve been getting news of the Hollywood, live-action version of Ghost in the Shell, and now, we have our first glimpse of the movie and Scarlett Johansson as Major Motoko Kusanagi.
Dreamworks and Paramount have announced that production of the film is already underway, and filming has begun over at Wellington, New Zealand. It’s only a single image so far, but we now have, at least, a general idea of what the look of Major Kusanagi would be like.
The movie is slated for a March 31, 2017, release and will be directed by Snow White and the Huntsman director Rupert Sanders. Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Stepehen Paul have been attached as producers while Michael Costigan (Prometheus), Tetsu Fujimura (Tekken), Production I.G’s Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, and Jeffrey Silver (Edge of Tomorrow, 300) will executive produce.
As for the casts, we already know that Scarlett Johansson will be playing the main character of Motoko Kusanagi. Other casts that have been confirmed include Beat Takeshi Kitano as Daisuke Aramaki, Juliette Binoche as Dr. Ouelet, Michael Pitt as the Laughing Man and Pilou Asbæk as Batou.
The other members of the Section 9 squad will be played by Singaporean actor Chin Han, Danusia Samal, Lasarus Ratuere, Yutaka Izumihara and Tuwanda Manyimo. As for who they play in the team, they’ve yet to confirm but we’ll be updating you all as soon as we get more information.
We have high hopes for this adaptation of the anime/manga. Of course with Hollywood’s history with adapting anime, we do have some misgivings but hopefully, just hopefully, they might get it right this time.
