I have seen the SAC series and thought that damn, I.G. really knows how to intrigue its fans with good plot twists and deep philosophical issues. Then I thought about how that made me feel, like when I felt good when Section 9 made some progress in the case, and outwitted the bad guys. Then I thought how other similar movies gave me those same feelings. And then, it hit me, Ocean’s 11. E.g. Pitt / Damon / Clooney could fit well for the role of Batou. Hell, even Roberts could play Motoko. Kusanagi is a very deep character, and If Spielberg wants to make it good, they need to have some academy-level cast in there. So combine the smoothness of Oceans 11, with the action / suspense of Bladerunner and the drama of Street Kings, and you might have a blockbuster. The location (set in futuristic Japan) might even not be that big an issue, because the story is actually set in a city that is called: New Port City. This could be like the next Hong Kong, so English speaking citizens would be very common.

As others have said in the past: This adaption will either fly to high heavens, or butcher the positive views of Ghost in the shell and anime fans all over the world.

I agree completely with Cliff in saying that the majority of the adaption’s success will be greatly dependent on the actors they choose and the roles they take, but I also agree with David and hope that they don’t westernize it to much. They will be able to keep most of the fans happy if it is still based in Japan.

Overall: If the adaption turns out to be another one of Spielberg’s floating turds in his solid gold toilet, I suppose I could still watch it………….for shits and giggles!

If this does go down the toilet, I guess we can kiss ghost in the shell goodbye

Ghost in the Shell doesn’t need ‘movie stars’ to be good…but the studio will probably have them anyway, cause they’ll see it as the only way to get the general public to see it, lol.

But I can’t believe it will be incredible unless they are willing to take a risky move and target it to a particular group (the group that likes GITS) rather than making it accessible to the masses.

I don’t have high hopes for this appealing to the masses, unless there’s a bunch of Motoko sex scenes, and that isn’t what the series was about even if Shirow enjoys drawing lesbian sex scenes (which would never fly in Hollywood).

Yes there’s a potential for a messed up adaptation, but what about the upside? If spielberg does a good job we’ll have a movie with fancy cg that would probably be mainstream (!) and people that wouldn’t have heard of gits otherwise will get exposed to something new.