After it was announced a while ago that Scarlett Johansson had signed on as the lead in the live-action Ghost in the Shell movie (here) we figured it was an ok bit of casting. Obvious. But ok.
Seems there’s not a lot of love for it beyond the walls of FTN HQ though…
A fan of the series has launched a petition to stop the Avengers actress from coming on board the manga adaptation and it looks like it’s going to reached its goal of 38,000 very quickly, indeed. The fan, Julie Rodriguez, explains in her petition homepage:
“The original film is set in Japan, and the major cast members are Japanese. So why would the American remake star a white actress? The industry is already unfriendly to Asian actors without roles in major films being changed to exclude them. One recent survey found that in 2013, Asian characters made up only 4.4% of speaking roles in top-grossing Hollywood films.
“Dreamworks could be using this film to help provide opportunities for Asian-American actors in a market with few opportunities for them to shine — please sign the petition asking them to reconsider casting Scarlett Johansson in Ghost in the Shell and select actors who are truer to the cast of the original film!”
We doubt this will have an effect on the April 14th, 2017 release date with Scarlett Johansson in the lead, but power to the people… you never can tell.
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