Dreamworks purchases rights to Ghost In The Shell

[Tuffty]

DreamWorks has purchased the rights to the Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell.

The company will adapt the futuristic cop thriller into a 3-D live-action movie, according to Variety...

Steven Spielberg was behind DreamWorks' bid for the project. He said: "Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories. It's a genre that has arrived and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks."

Just hope it's not a dumbed down version of the GITS universe. And it being a good film, naturally.

[ctz]

Just hope it's not a dumbed down version of the GITS universe.

I can't imagine it being anything else. Though GITS have so much good material that I guess it's impossible to screw it up totally.

[polidread]

i hope they go back to the manga basics and make it a police action-comedy with a dash of sci-fi.

[redux]

I'm not arsed about the manga or any of the animes in truth but this is interesting news, will see how this goes.

[chokkan 2]

hmm .......... hope they don't screw it up ..........

[StreakInTheSky]

If Spielberg directs it, I'd have high hopes for it not to fail.

He better do it! D:

[Foxy Brown]

I hope it has anatomically correct robot nudity and lots of talk about philosophy and a soundtrack full of singing children.

[BigDnm01]

This very well may be the best (and my most anticipated) american remake of Japanese or Asian entertainment (dramas, manga, anime, stories, novel, etc.) with Spielberg on the credits. 

Frankly, i think it's gonna beat Transformer, Speed Racer, DBZ:the movie, My Sassy Girl and other american remakes....
 let's just hope.... we don't know yet....

[reyfer]

This very well may be the best (and my most anticipated) american remake of Japanese or Asian entertainment (dramas, manga, anime, stories, novel, etc.) with Spielberg on the credits. 

Frankly, i think it's gonna beat Transformer, Speed Racer, DBZ:the movie, My Sassy Girl and other american remakes....
 let's just hope.... we don't know yet....

To be honest, ANYTHING would beat Speed Racer and the Dragon Ball movie.

And by the way, in a way GITS was already made into a Hollywood movie.....ever heard where the inspiration for The Matrix came from?

[Tuffty]

^ That's true enough. Every shot in The Matrix is like some kind of tribute to GITS

[youtube=425,350]Y3tF7TL0Qh4[/youtube]

[reyfer]

GITS was a major influence for The Matrix, specially Mamoru Oshii's anime movie. In fact, on the DVD, in the interview with Joel Silver (producer of The Matrix), he says that the Wachowski brothers first described their intentions for The Matrix by showing him that anime and saying, "We wanna do that for real"

[Tuffty]

Producer Steven Paul (Ghost Rider, Tekken) was a guest at Saturday's Troma panel at the San Diego Comic-Con, where he spoke briefly about the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie that he will produce -- alongside his Seaside Entertainment partner Avi Arad -- with one of the biggest names in Hollywood.

"Recently we did a deal for Ghost in the Shell. And we're going to do it with Steven Spielberg and DreamWorks. We're now in the process of working with the writer [Jamie Moss] and putting the story together. It's a complicated film, for those who know the property, and we have a big challenge ahead of us," Paul said.

Given that Spielberg is one of the most sought after people in Hollywood, how did Paul get the Oscar winner on the project? "Ghost in the Shell is a passion project of Steven Spielberg's so it really just had to do with that. It's really something that he's been in love with for many years," he explained. "We're going to do it as a 3-D film. So it's something that he's really pushing to help get more theaters built into 3-D using Ghost in the Shell right now as a symbol that you need to get more 3-D theaters."

Good news I guess, but judging by the way things are going, it'll be set in New York and 50 Cent will be cast as Batou.

[BigDnm01]

Is there any updated news on this?  I read that the story might be set in Hong Kong.  but what I'm really interested in is will the story revolves around Japan's Public Safety Commission, Section 9?  Is there even a Major Kusanagi Motoko, Batou, Ishikawa, togusa, Borma, Pazu, Saito, tachikomas and Section Chief Aramaki?
If not, then I dunno even see the point to call it Ghost in the Shell.  I'm keeping an eye on this, plus any other live-action adaptation of a Japanese anime/manga/story.
Though I'm already pretty biased with all the retarded adaptations hollywood been throwing out, I'll try to keep it neutral. 

[Tuffty]

Laeta Kalogridis, the current screenwriter for Dreamworks and Steven Spielberg's planned live-action adaptation of Masamune Shirow's Ghost in the Shell cyber-police manga, revealed on Tuesday evening that she will "turn in a draft in a few weeks." She expressed cautious optimism about the project, and indirectly noted an obstacle such a project faces in Hollywood: "Cross your fingers, guys — [it has a] female lead."

Kalogridis spoke at a post-screening Q&A session for Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island film in Los Angeles. At this event sponsored by Creative Screenwriting Magazine, Kalogridis was more tight-lipped about another manga-based project with a female lead character. Kalogridis was once hired by Avatar director James Cameron to script his planned adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM) manga. When asked about the possibilities of the Battle Angel film or an Avatar sequel, she responded, "You have to ask Jim — anything to do with [those projects]."

Kalogridis served as the screenwriter and an executive producer for Shutter Island and as an executive producer on Avatar.

A female lead? I'd like to think so. But she didn't directly say it's Major Kusanagi...

[Mucca]

No random, lengthy lesbian sex scene with the Major in the middle of the movie, no sale. 

[Stryfe]

^ Word. STAY TRUE TO THE MANGA, BITCHES!

[Tuffty]

Random thought, and might not even be the case, but as she said it's not Major Kusanagi, does that then give the movie producers the excuse to go with a non-Asian lead as these Hollywood adaptations tend to do which already splits the target demographic who the producers have to appease to see this film in the first palce?