Sony and Universal may have thought they had a decent shot at acquiring the feature rights for Ghost in the Shell, but they were shit-out-of-luck the minute Steven Spielberg barged in and said, “Mine.” Fret not, fellas. There’s always Pokemon.
“Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories,” bellowed a nude and glistening Spielberg to the stunned Variety duo of Michael Fleming and Tatiana “Stubbs” Siegel. “It’s a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it at Dreamworks.” Though I liked Ghost in the Shell – and its sequel, Innocence (love Bato and his basset hound) – a helluva lot more than most of the anime I’ve been unfortunate enough to watch in my lifetime, I pity the poor soul tasked with simplifying its exceedingly convoluted story. Interestingly, Spielberg has hired a relative newcomer, Jamie Moss (one of three writers on Street Kings), to make Americanized sense of the futuristic (i.e. 2029) tale in which a team of undercover cyborgs attempts to track down a powerful hacker called “The Puppet Master”. If that sounds simple enough, you really need to watch the movie.
I’m not sure why Spielberg is all charged up over the cinematic arrival of this genre (which was prematurely delivered back in 1995 with Robert Longo’s major oopsie, Johnny Mnemonic), but I can definitely see how its diverting surface – most notably the sex-bomb main character of Major Motoko Kusanagi (a plum role for Scarlett Johansson) – could lure mainstream audiences into the kind of intellectually challenging science-fiction they typically skip. And when they blow fuses trying to make sense of the narrative, they’ll probably be off the genre for good (i.e. unless Will Smith and Akiva Goldsman are there to dumb it down for them)!
I’m kinda burying this aspect of the story because I don’t think it’s particularly interesting, but Spielberg intends to do Ghost in the Shell as a 3-D feature. Given the more-is-more mentality of tentpole filmmaking, this is hardly surprising. There just better be a basset hound in there somewhere.
15 comments
He screwed up AI! He can do touchy-feely, how the heck can he do a hardcore anime based film!?! Stick to your franchises Steven!
Yea, Jaws is all touchy-feely. Munich is all touchy-feely.
And I came up with the touchy-feely bits in AI, you fucking dolt.
He screwed up AI? Hardcore anime? Bwahaaaha. I love how anime fans think only they get how "hardcore" and deep it all is. Grow up, you're a loser who jacks off to shitty cartoons. Truth be told, they aren't even drawn well. Go away while we talk about real film. Nice write up, Beaks (as usual).
Thanks, now I have the lovely image of a bellowing, nude and glistening Spielberg etched in my phyche.
Hum, an Americanized version of Ghost in the Shell.. yuck
BORING. This movie put me to sleep every single time I attempted to watch it. I guess cartoon nudity just couldn't hold my interest enough to force my way through the convoluted story. In my defense though, unlike most of this films audience, I was not a virgin when I saw it.
This is a terrible idea. I love the movies and the TV show and unless the movie deals with the idea of the self and life it won't be GiTS. I'll bet money they won't address anything like that and have flashy 3-D effects of unbelievable CG models flopping around in front of green-screen facades.
What's wrong with producing original work in Hollywood?
PS – Spielberg in the nude…such an image should be incorporated into every one of your stories, it made me laugh out loud at work.
I'll watch it for the porn if there's any. I'd like to see Full Metal Alchemist adapted at some point though. Check it out if you're one of those anti-anime people and have your mind changed after the first few episodes hook the shit out of you.
Anyone remember that the anime(s) are based on an even better (and sometimes even humorous) manga by Masamune Shirow? That should be thought of as source material (which I'm sure Steven will ignore like everyone else).
No.
Dreamworks sure did a sorry-ass job of releasing INNOCENCE, if Spielberg's got such a hard-on for the property. The theatrical release was a joke, the botched DVDs were the punchline. DO NOT WANT
If they do this they should go back to the source or to the TV series. The film had so much stripped out of it all you're left with is extremely thin new age/stoner metaphysics *What is life?* "Whoooah dude", *What makes a human human?* "Easy dude yur making my head hurt!"
*here's some mood music and a languid street scene while you think about it*
And that's pretty much it. Forget innocence, first it needs substance.
Damn straight, Jeremy! No basset hound, no movie! YA HEAR THAT, SPIELBERG?
There was porn in the GITS anime? Guess I must have seen a censored version, then.
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