|
Movie Matchmaker: Who Should Direct Ghost in the Shell?
by Tom Burns
Regular readers of The Deadbolt know that behind our cold, calculating internet anonymity lies the heart of a truly romantic website. Yes, we're obsessed with pop culture and our emotional development has been stunted by an overload of snark and Red Bull, but there's nothing that The Deadbolt staffers love more than watching a perfect match - the perfect pairing of director and source material - blossom into a sepia-toned Hollywood romance. Our movie-addicted yentas have already matched up David Fincher with World War Z, Quentin Tarantino with GTA, and, most recently, Martin Scorsese with The Devil in the White City and, as our matchmaking prowess develops, we're learning that creating these kinds of pairings are a lot like setting a good friend up on a blind date. You really want the match to work, you like both of the hopeful matchees separately, but you never know how they're going to click together. Guessing on chemistry is a hard gamble, and it's a problem that's really hitting home with our latest potential match.
 A few weeks ago, it was announced that DreamWorks had acquired the rights to turn the beyond-cool Japanese manga Ghost in the Shell - one of the canonical works of modern cyberpunk - into a 3D live-action thriller. Steven Spielberg was even quoted as saying, "Ghost in the Shell is one of my favorite stories. It's a genre that has arrived, and we enthusiastically welcome it to DreamWorks." When this news hit the web, fans of all things manga and sci-fi were immediately thrown either into states of euphoria or panic. In certain nerd circles, Ghost in the Shell is amazingly popular and influential, inspiring a long running manga series, three theatrical movies, two animated anime series, and multiple video games. The plot follows Major Motoko Kusanagi and Section 9, a hi-tech police force of computer cowboys, cyborgs, and gunmen who track down cyber-crooks, ghost-hackers, rogue AIs, and bionic bad-guys. Granted, that's a gross simplification - Ghost is known for its multi-layered narratives, tough philosophical questions, and unflinching look at the nature of human consciousness - but, for fans of pretty pictures out there, just think of William Gibson, Blade Runner, AI, and Akira, throw them in a blender and hit "awesome", and you'll get a pretty good idea of the Ghost in the Shell vibe.
Two Ghosts - Two Directors (One Betty, One Veronica)
 Sounds like it has the potential to make an amazing 3D movie, right? Well, here's where it gets tricky. While we've always imagined what we'd want to see in a live-action Ghost movie, the DreamWorks acquisition has now really colored our expectations about the final film. Spielberg is an amazing filmmaker, but a Hollywood, 3D IMAX version of Ghost is going to be a whole lot different than an independent live-action Ghost or even a Ghost movie originating from Hong Kong or anywhere else in Asia. Now we have two versions of a Ghost in the Shell film in our heads - to put it in matchmaking terms, we have the Betty, the safe sweet American version, and the Veronica, the darker, nastier, but almost more alluring "other" version. For the first time ever, Deadbolt's Movie Matchmaker is going to address both the ying and the yang (or the Betty and Veronica) of a Ghost in the Shell adaptation and suggest two different directors for each potential version. While the Betty seems like the safer bet, thanks to Spielberg and DreamWorks involvement, Movie Matchmaker is always more interested in making the right match rather than the most convenient match. So, sit back, relax, and let us tell you the tales of two very different Ghost in the Shell movies, one directed by the Wachowski Brothers and the other by Takashi Miike.
Movie Matchmaker: Who Should Direct Ghost in the Shell? Page 2
|
