DreamWorks acquires rights to Ghost in the Shell live-action
 

DreamWorks to make 'Ghost' in 3-D - Entertainment News, Film News, Media - Variety
CUE FANBOY MOANING

(Watch them sit on it forever like WETA with Evangelion)

Interesting. I wonder who they'd get to play the Major?

Wonder if they're gonna Americanize the names...

A live-action version of Akira is coming with Leonardo DiCaprio playing Kaneda. I'm serious :( It's on IMDB. I hope this isn't the next big craze.

In before Pokemon movie.

Yoko Kanno had better be scoring the music. NO other composer (american or otherwise) can equal her work with this series.

strange i don't smell fail on this one
would of been great if the guys behind the matrix did it cause for sure they would of gave it some type of justice.

I'd take a look at what the Wachowski brothers are able to accomplish with Speed Racer before I make that judgment. Sure, The Matrix is influenced by GitS but I dunno...

Spielberg better make damn sure the movie gets the proper adaption it deserves.

3 years later:
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Batou.

Yeah, hey let's give it to the Wachowski's, because they're a stunning 1 for 4 (Saw an advance on Speed Racer, about 25 minutes worth. Don't hold your breath, boys.) and as such, fully deserve to fuck this up, too.

Stop sucking the Wachowski's dick, people. They're not good filmmakers. They got lucky with one movie, and that STILL gets more praise than it deserves.

Blah got this one right. It's going to be like WETA taking rights and not bothering. Every anime-to-real adaptation that's coming down the pipes looks -terrible-. You know why? Because it's going to be -ridiculous-.

The reason things like this generally fail, especially in the eyes of all you fanboys out there, is that because the original is so well known, you're looking for a carbon copy remake only with actual actors. When the studios adapt it a bit and possibly give it a bit more mass market appeal you all get your pants twisted and decry it as garbage.

Despite Deni's dislike of them, the Wachowski's with the Matrix trilogy made a good adaptaion of Ghost in the Shell with real actors already. According to interviews with Joel Schumacher, the first thing they did when they wanted him to direct the movies was show him GITS and say "We want to make that with actors". By sensibly not plastering the name all over it, they were able to avoid too much direct comparison with GITS and people saw the film for what it was, a good quality action film which included all the obvious cliches you find in anime (Big robots, super-human martial artists, an implausible plot that's never quite described to the viewer in attempt to make it seem "deep", etc etc) without getting hung up on the "OMG WUT HAEV THEY DUNZ TO GITS!!!!!111!!! BASTARDZ!!!111!" that would have been inevitable if it had been called GITS the movie or something.

Also, I don't understand the concept this comment:

Why would it be a bad thing if this became the latest craze? At best, someone might produce some really good live action adaptations of some manga films. At worst, a bunch will come out and they'll all be shit. Nobody is going to force you to watch them though, just don't go, carry on sitting at home watching the cartoon versions instead. At least some of the Hollywood revenues from all the people who do go to see them might end up in the hands of the studios who made the original anime, enabling them to fund bigger and better projects or invest in new talent or even just make up some of the revenue shortfall they have from people downloading their shit rather than buying it and enable them to stay afloat.

Honestly, explain to me the downside in any of that.

I'm still waiting on a really good live action adaptation of a video game, man. Even if Hollywood shoots at everything that moves, that doesn't mean they'll definitely do one right.

Pardon me for despising the unoriginality that Hollywood has been stuck in for several, several years now. I wasn't aware that I had to silently witness shitty movies get released without complaining about the state of things. GitS will probably suck because it'll get dumbed down so, so, so very much in order to make it to movie length. Either they pick up assuming the audience knows about stuff, or they dumb it down INCREDIBLY, as well as probably wreck the characters in the process.

I still can't believe people actually like Matrix 2 and 3. Either way, it wouldn't matter if they were involved since these types of adaptations always fail. I just don't see how a live action anything from anime could translate well. It really doesn't help the guy that's involved with all these awful comic book movies is working on this.

I do consider the original Ghost in the Shell animated feature one of my favourite animated films of all time.

I just don't know what to expect from this. If they do end up making a live action movie of this anime, I'll probably go see it. I just won't expect much out of it. I think its unrealistic for people to expect any film that is adapted from an anime or a video game to be a complete carbon copy.

I'll be honest I don't look at films the same way that a lot of the film buffs do. I just want to come out of the movie and just think to myself that it was entertaining to watch and if it was worth my 10 dollars to see it in theatre.

I've seen a few live action anime movies such as the Guyver movies, Wicked City, City Hunter, Fist Of The Northstar, and a few others. To be honest while the majority of them were bad. Some I really enjoyed such as City Hunter and Fist Of The Northstar no matter how cheesy or inaccurate they were.

I even heard talk of a rumor that since Transformers was so successful. That they're even considered turning Robotech into a live action movie. I've got no ambition to see Speed Racer. It'll probably be a rental for me more than likely.

When it comes to movies based on an anime or manag series, its best not to look too much into it and just take it at face value. You'd probably be a little less disappointed when it comes to movies such as these.