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Tokyo Gore Police
Spielberg Taking GHOST IN THE SHELL Live Action
Posted by Todd Brown at 6:41am.
Posted in Film News , Cult, Animation, Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Asia.
Please resist the urge to make everything neat and clean ... please resist the urge to make everything neat and clean ... please resist the urge to make everything neat and clean ...
Mack reported all the way back in January that Japanese anime house Production IG were actively seeking an American movie studio to develop a live action adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s classic story Ghost in the Shell with. To nobody’s surprise the interest was huge with a number of major studios in the fray and I just spotted a note over on Bloody Disgusting that the battle is over thanks to the personal intervention of the heaviest of Hollywood heavyweights. Word is that Steven Spielberg stepped in personally to ensure that the project ended up at Dreamworks where Avi Arad - the man behind the recent string of Marvel comic adaptations - will produce a Jamie Moss script. There’s no firm confirmation of who will direct but I can’t imagine that Spielberg took action on this himself just to hand it off to someone else.
How do I feel about this? Well, Speilberg obviously has the technical skills to pull it off. The man’s a monster when it comes to creating alternate worlds and putting the truly fantastic on screen. However he also has an ongoing tendency to clean up and sanitize just about everything he touches - his adaptation of Philip K Dick’s Minority Report being a prime example. This could be spectacular. It could be painful. It could be both. I’m excited and afraid all at the same time ...
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Reader Comments
Tory 04/16/2008 @ 7:42am
Afraid, Todd? I’m nothing but excited.
matto 04/16/2008 @ 9:19am
i actually preffered the spielberg take on “minority report” next to the original work by PKD. a huge fan of PKD, it made me nervous, but it was pleasing in a very different way. much like the oshii “ghost in the shell” next to the shirow original, it was a different beast. the tone ended up different, but it was still embracing an element of the original that id loved. with the tv series taking yet another tone, it would be intersting to see spielberg’s spin on the idea (assuming, of course, he has any creative voice in it).
Al Young 04/16/2008 @ 10:21am
Oh man, it’s open season on adapting anime to live action in Hollywood apparently. We got Speed Racer, Dragon Ball, Ninja Scroll, Blood: The Last Vampire, Akira and probably more on their way. I’m still awaiting word on the Robotech/Macross live action.
Rhythm-X 04/16/2008 @ 12:21pm
Someone please keep the director of WAR OF THE WORLDS and the Executive Producer of TRANSFORMERS away from GHOST IN THE SHELL. Far, far, far away. This news actually, literally made me throw up in my mouth a little. Not even hyperbole. I won’t begrudge him his classics, but the guy running around these days is a remarkable simulation of Stephen Spielberg. The REAL Spielberg would have quietly had Michael Bay launched into the Sun instead of letting him direct anything longer than a beer commercial.
LT Roberts 04/16/2008 @ 3:14pm
I am mixed on this. Part of me asks ‘why mess with it’. There’s really nothing to be gained from making this into live action, as far as I’m concerned. Done well, I suppose it could be cool, but I too am a little wary of the sanitization process that Spielberg often puts things through (AI, anyone???). Minority Report was cool up until the last ten minutes, which IMO, should have been lopped off.
When Stevie is good he’s very, very good, but when he’s bad, he’s awful. My big concern is whether he ‘gets’ the concept or not. To me, it’s very Japanese - in it’s setting, it’s mentality, and it’s themes. Take it away from Japan and I’m not sure if it will even resemble what the source material is.
Guess we’ll see.
GAPS 04/16/2008 @ 4:29pm
If ever there was a film where the live-action visuals are unlikely to surpass the ones in the anime adaptation counterparts… actually now that you mention it, Akira is likely to have the same amusing problem.
dequinix 04/16/2008 @ 5:08pm
A part of me is secretly giddy waiting to see the barrage of posts on message boards around the world that complain, “This is such a Matrix knock-off!”
Tory 04/16/2008 @ 5:21pm
Ha! I can just see that happening.
ChevalierAguila 04/16/2008 @ 8:08pm
“Please resist the urge to make everything neat and clean ... please resist the urge to make everything neat and clean ... please resist the urge to make everything neat and clean ...”
He can’t resist it, it’s part of his sistem.
Oh well, another franchise getting mud on it’s record. Nothing new here.
anton_es 04/17/2008 @ 2:52am
OMG ! sacrilege ! spielberg go away ! make more questionable, boring and sanitized american empire movies. don’t touch our beloved GITS. I can already imagine “transformation” sequence, major m. all dressed in the newest versace.
and then he can let himself be celebrated as the most “inventive” filmmaker of all times after a row of copycat movies (WOTW, Munich, A.I. and now GITS)
in the last years, I just didn’t care about spielberg, then he got annoying (A.I.) and now he’s a pain in the ass.
Ard Vijn 04/17/2008 @ 7:16am
Actually, I would be very surprised if Spielberg handles this himself.
On more than one occasion he has stuck his neck out to acquire material, only to be involved as a producer later on and leave the directing to someone else.
He might even do nothing at all, as when he bought the rights to the Stephen King and Peter Straub novel “The Talisman”.
If this is the case he has saved GitS from a bad live-action film while throwing Production IG some money to do cool things with!
Hey, give the man SOME credit (at least till we’ve seen Indy IV...).