During a promotion event for Shutter Island, the colleagues from Screen Rant and MoviesOnline.ca had the chance to talk with script writer Laeta Kalogridis about the current status of her script for the Ghost in the Shell live-action adaptation:

Q: Is that a remake of the 1995 film or is that an adaptation of the earlier manga?
LK: “Ghost in the Shell” was originally the manga. The anime came from the original graphic novel and then — and that anime, as you know, is a relatively famous, groundbreaking piece of material — also generated two seasons of an animated television show as well. And this is an adaptation of the original manga, the original comic book that sort of began everything.
MoviesOnline.ca

Kalogridis told me that the script for Ghost In The Shell will be drawn from Masamune’s manga comic and that it has “a lot of action… lots of action.” However, she then added, “there’s still going to be a lot of atmosphere – [The movie] is about vast possibilities – all of this technology, the Internet – it’s about the limitless possibilities of this technology.”
Screen Rant

Putting aside the usal reserverations against Hollywood adaptations, I’m glad they decided to use Masamune Shirow’s original manga as a source as it includes some great plot points that haven’t been touched in Mamoru Oshii’s 1995 film and only found some mentioning in the Stand Alone Complex seasons.
[via ANN]

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ComingSoon.net reports that Dreamworks Pictures has hired Laeta Kalogridis as the screenwriter for the 3D live-action adaptation of Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell that has been floating around the net for quite some time now. Until now, (im at least in April 2008), Jamie Moss (Street Kings) was supposed to write the script for Avi Arad, Ari Arad and Steven Paul’s Seaside Entertainment.
Well, color me unimpressed. For the live-action adaptation of Akira, Warner got Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby (who wrote the screenplay for Children of Men) so there is a bit of hope for that, but looking at Kalogridis’ career so far (Alexander, Night Watch, Pathfinder) I just can’t see how she’s supposed to properly transfer the Ghost in the Shell universe into the reel (eh) world.

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Wheee, a Mamoru Oshii Hattrick! After two clips, Manga Entertainment released a full trailer for the upcoming (October 26th) UK DVD and Blu-ray Disc release of Ghost in the Shell 2.0.
It features a nice selection of “old and new” scenes, but they should get rid of the guy (is this the English voice of Batou?) who did the terrible voice over…

[via /Film]

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Because you guys “enjoyed” last week’s Ghost in the Shell 2.0 clip so much, Manga Entertainment released another one that shows the “new” CG Motoko taking a nice swim.

[via Anime UK News]

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Manga Entertainment has release an almost one minute long preview clip from the 2.0 redux version of Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell that will be released in the USA on Blu-ray Disc in November. The clip shows one of the “cg improved” scenes and preview some of the English dub…must be a loose wire…or probably one of these day

[via activeanime]

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Sometimes it really pays off to re-read updated posts.
DVD Times has updated one of its posts regarding Manga Entertainments upcoming UK Blu-ray Disc release of Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell 2.0 with the little fact that the original 1995 version (‘1.0′) will be included on the same disc that will hit the shelves October 26th! However, according to this comment the picture quality of the original is nothing to write home about:

The original movie is on the Blu-ray and is in HD, but it’s 1080i and has to be the worst transfer I’ve ever seen on Blu-ray. The source looks like a VHS tape.

I _guess_ Manga Entertainment used of their own transfers for this instead of using the Japanese 1.0 Blu-ray Disc, probably because of legal reasons.

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After a few early announcements with only vage time frames, a proper release date for the US Blu-ray Disc release of Ghost in the Shell 2.0 has been announced.
According to RightStuf.com, Manga Entertainment will release the “improved” 2.0 version of Mamoru Oshii’s anime classic on November 24th, a month after the delayed UK Blu-ray Disc release and almost a year after the neat Japanese one.
[Thanks to AnimeOnBlu for the heads-up!]

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Moe Master muhootsaver has found the probably first full resolutions screenshots taken from the Japanese Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Blu-ray Disc release.
Sadly the picture quality isn’t quite what I expected and this looks look more like an upscale than a proper HD transfer.

With the PQ being like this, I guess it isn’t such a tragedy that the box sets don’t include English subtitles after all…
[via Can you Moe?]

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Conan O’Brien and his sidekick Andy Richter visited the synchronisation studio Bang Zoom! Entertainment, made fun of some weird anime figures and created their very own version of Ghost in the Shell that even I would watch!

[via Toronto J-Film Pow-Wow & Watashi to Tokyo]

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Bandai Visual has released the first pictures of the first (of four) Blu-ray Disc collections for Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex Blu-ray Disc Box that just break my poor little tachikoma-loving heart.
While the last Blu-ray Disc collection with the Laughing Man and Individual Eleven compilation movies, and Solid State Society was pretty much ugly as hell but included English subtitles, this one (coming from Honneamise on August 29th) would actually look great in my (and probably everone’s) collection but sadly won’t include English subtitles.
Oddly enough the English dub will be included (even if it’s only in lossy DD 5.1) again, so the sad lack of subtitles probably isn’t because of the usual licensee hullabaloo but because BV hates me and doesn’t want my money…

[via AV Watch & Bandai Visual]

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