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Scarlett Johansson's 'Ghost In The Shell' Gets A Last-Ditch Trailer

This article is more than 7 years old.

With a few days to go before the release, Paramount/Viacom Inc. have dropped this last (UK-targeted) trailer for their (presumably) expensive sci-fi thriller, Ghost in the Shell. There's not much you haven't seen before, with Scarlett Johansson jumping around, kicking butt and wearing that really odd "not nude but kinda looks nude" body suit.

There isn't much buzz for the film, and the fact that we won't get reviews until close to the release doesn't bode terribly well for the movie. The adaptation of the popular Manga title has been mostly discussed regarding the practicality/morality of casting Scarlett Johansson as a character who is kinda-sorta Japanese in a Japan-set film otherwise populated by a diverse cast of characters.

To be fair, Johansson is one of the few outright box office draws in an action movie these days, male or female. I applaud her getting the kind of star vehicle pay-off (she got $10 million for the part) for Lucy and the MCU films that her male co-stars would get as a matter of course. And the original movie's director has no qualms with the casting. But, to be fair, the "to be fair" arguments usually result in minority actors getting screwed often for the sake of films that turn out to be mediocre/lousy anyway.

Would The Last AirbenderExodusPan, and Netflix's Iron Fist have been better with different casting choices beyond "white?" I'm not sure, but they couldn't have been much worse. But I'll hold that thought until we actually see the film. For the moment, we are at the end of an incredibly crowded March release slate. And while I once feared that the deluge of expensive/valuable studio franchise offerings would cannibalize each other, so far that hasn't happened.

LoganKong: Skull Island, Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast and Power Rangers all performed about as well as they might have absent the copious competition. The market expanded, there was room for (almost) everything to breathe, and even a couple smaller-scale releases like Blumhouse's Get Out (which will outgross at least a couple of the tentpoles in North America), and The Shack (which is about to top $50m) thrived alongside the biggies.

Yes, we mourn Before I FallCHiPs and Life, but it was not the total massacre that I feared. So if Paramount/Viacom Inc. and DreamWorks's visually dazzling Ghost in the Shell pulls in numbers anywhere close to Lucy ($44 million debut/$126m domestic/$463m worldwide), we may have a jam-packed March slate where every really big movie performed pretty darn well. And even if Ghost fumbles, 4/5 isn't a bad batting average if we're going to start actually getting year-round blockbusters.

Ghost in the Shell opens this Thursday night at 7:00 pm. As always, we'll see.

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