Upon knowing that Ghost in the Shell has been a film in development hell for almost a decade since it was initially announced. And this has been a film that has moved from studio to studio; with Mickey Mouse seemingly being the one to make until the Mouse dropped it off at Paramount with DreamWorks co-producing the film. Universal has picked up distribution rights for numerous countries outside of the United States, not sure how much of their involvement factors into the final product of the film.
Before I get to the real source of the "problem"; I want to address the biggest complaint that I have seen to date. Scarlett Johansson was announced as the role of the "Major" who in the anime and manga is named Motoko Kusanagi. As you can tell, Scarlett Johansson is an American of Danish descent. The biggest and most annoying remark I see regarding this casting choice is; "Why Isn't Rinko Kikuchi the Major"?
Hollywood is a money making machine. Whenever movies are being pitched and financiers are mulling things over, if it's not going to make money; it needs to win awards. And to make money, you need names that will put asses in seats. Case in point, Rinko Kikuchi is persona-non-grata or "box office poison". 2013 was a big year for Rinko and it was a bust for her as both Pacific Rim and 47 Ronin bombed. Pacific Rim was budgeted around $200 million and made half of that in the United States. And even though it made $100 million in the States, half of the money goes to the theatrical establishments meaning that WB only got $50 million. That means that in the United States, only a quarter a film's budget was recouped.
And almost everyone jumps to the fact that Pacific Rim made a killing in China and grossed almost $112 million. While China has been the number two market that studios are looking at, it is not the United States. It all varies from studio to studio, Legendary decided to go for a sequel for both Pacific Rim and Warcraft because of the Chinese box office results while both films bombed here in the States. Since Ghost in the Shell is a Paramount film; they had all ready tried to rely on the Chinese market for Terminator: Genisys to get a sixth film made and it failed to make enough to justify getting that film off the ground. Paramount and the financiers are probably not going to take that risk for this film, even though I doubt there will be a sequel despite how vast this universe is.
47 Ronin was crowned the title of the "biggest box office bomb of 2013". The film made under $40 million in the United States and cost a grand total of $225 million dollars. The film failed to get a Chinese release and it's biggest grossing outside the United States was Russia with about $27 million. Worldwide, the film made $150 million and half of that goes to the theater establishments. So, a $225 million that only made a third of it's budget back.
And her follow up to those films was Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter which only managed to score a limited theatrical release. Most likely due to the failures of her other previous English language films. I cannot find any budget for this film, which was probably a $20+ million film and it didn't even hit a million worldwide in theatrical grosses.
Rinko has gone back to Japan and is now married and starting a family. While she has a part in Pacific Rim 2: Uprising, it is not a lead role. And besides, there are other Asian actresses who are more qualified but most people who jump to the default "Why isn't it Rinko" probably don't watch a lot of foreign films to see what other talent is out there compared to what junk the Hollywood system churns out. Actresses like Ai Hashimoto, Satomi Ishihara, Kiko Mizuhara, Aya Ueto, Chiaki Kuriyama; and other Asian ethnic actresses like Liu Yufei, Li Bingbing, or Kelly Hu. There are plenty of other Asian actresses out there who could get the job done compared to Rinko Kikuchi.
I am biased towards both Scarlett Johansson and Rinko Kikuchi. While Scarlett is an attractive woman, her movie roles have been less than stellar in my opinion. And her political views have been a bit of a turn off for me as well. Seeing the trailers and seeing how she has done for the role of the "Major", it's been so-so. I am more or less excited for seeing Beat Takeshi as the man who runs the corporation that created the Major. If you know who Beat Takeshi is, it's kinda surprising seeing him take on an American role. This is the first English film that he has done since Johnny Mnemonic in 1994.
I see a lot of hate from fans and I see a lot of this hate aimed in the wrong direction. It is not Paramount and DreamWorks for making the film. It's not Scarlett Johansson for taking the role; she's an actress who has a child and having a kid means you got to provide. The hate should be, but it won't, is the owners/publisher of the manga. Again, I myself have no problem with this film adaption; but, the owners are the ones who ultimately want to make money off their product. Be it from publishing and selling copies in shops or by cutting adaption deals for either television, film, or video game. The owners are the ones who allow this whenever the ink hits the papers and the money exchanges hands.
I, myself, have had some far out and radical thoughts about doing adaptions because you want to be able to make a product that stands out. Given the case for Ghost in the Shell, you got Scarlett Johannson. If my favorite theatrical establishment ends up getting the film, I will be buying a ticket to see this film because I don't care what you think.
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