After the big screen anime to live action rumblings of Dragonball, AKIRA, Ninja Scroll to even crappy shows like Speed Racer (its crap admit it. The only reason people in the states dig it is because of that goddamn theme song) it's not hard to see why studios keep making these. After all, the anime medium has tons of genres that are vastly unique to western audiences. While we bitch at tired remakes at least Hollywood is going after newer game.

Variety tells us that now Steven Spielberg has landed the rights to Masamune Shirow's "GHOST IN THE SHELL".

While normally I do cringe at anime turn live action I don't feel too skeptical about this. Spielberg being attached to this does mean that it will be taken seriously and not half-assed in anyway. I'm curious to see the approach he'll take on this. The current Stand Alone Complex era type of police story telling is the one DreamWorks is going to focus on which great because I don't think the mass U.S. audiences can sit through the beautiful yet in the weeds future tech talk that tends to bleed through Masamune Shirow's work (where entire manga chapters can be about the complexities of a brake clutch and its relation to humanity).

Still I don’t want the property to be dumbed down as Spielberg tends to think mainstream audience first (which is a perfectly reasonable thing to think of. Realistically the amount of money that’s going to be poured into this project is going to need that mainstream money to make a profit). Add to the fact that this movie will be in 3D. That could be incredible if pulled off correctly.

Normally I would say something like, "GOD HATES US and this is why" but the license could really be in worse hands.

I just hope the casting isn't too terrible because that’s when the hair pulling starts (ten bucks say an Asian isn't playing Motoko Kusangi. 20 bucks on them changing her name entirely).