Live-action American Ghost in the Shell film inches closer to reality…

Ghost in the Shell

A rare image of her with clothes on!


[adrotate banner=”1″]But only if now-attached director Rupert Sanders can find a female lead that he can have sex with!

Okay, MAYBE that’s speculation that the director of Snow White and the Huntress, who ruined his marriage with female star Kristen Stewart, is going to sleep with the star of his new female-centric film. Maybe. But for some reason Rupert Sanders is suddenly hot to trot in the movie world, getting attached to everything ever. DreamWorks has snagged him for their Ghost in the Shell flick, which Spielberg has been wanted to get made forever.

Ghost in the Shell is one of the few anime films I have watched, and my vague recollection remembers it has to do with a secret squad of the Japanese National Public Safety Commission and a female android that is naked a lot. There is a bunch of philosophy that will probably be ignored in favor of trying to turn this into The Matrix (which borrowed A LOT from GITS!)

Rupert Sanders is already attached to: 90 Church – a film about Napoleon, The Juliet – which is called Bonnie and Clyde in space (WTF?), and a remake of Kill List. He’s pretty busy, but a guy’s got to relax, and where else to relax but on a couch. Where’s he’s casting leads…

My take? Expect Ghost in the Shell to stay in development hell, and Rupert Sanders to continue to be sleeping alone!

via Deadline

Kite – What in the ever loving…?

Kite India Eisley
[adrotate banner=”1″]Kite is a live-action adaptation of the anime Kite, which had a dubbed American release with a lot of things edited out, but the uncensored version features lots of graphic underage nudity/rape and violence. That alone should throw up a bunch of red flags, but put your flags away for a moment because they released a trailer and preview (featuring several scenes) that make the American version look like a gigantic fiasco.

Kite is about a young girl whose parents are murdered, and she’s turned into an assassin by corrupt cops to take down other bad people, and to get revenge on who murdered her parents. Of course there are other teenage assassins running around, and almost every character is played by a white person but keeps their Japanese name. Except Sam Jackson’s character, who gets a name change.

It looks like they copied scenes almost exactly, leading to weird things like the over acting old lady and lots of funky anime hair colors. I’m sure someone saw Hit-Girl in Kick-Ass and decided that a whole movie on the concept would be golden.

But it is terrible! Don’t take my word for it, they threw up almost ten minutes of the film for you to make your own decisions. It’s called freedom of choice!

Cast:
Samuel L. Jackson as Karl Aker
India Eisley as Sawa
Callan McAuliffe as Oburi
Russel Savadier as Old Boy
Jaco Muller as Kratsov
Liam J. Stratton as Sawa’s Father
Keci Eatock as Young Sawa

Kite is directed by South African director Ralph Ziman of Gangster’s Paradise: Jerusalema fame. I hope he has another project lined up already.

Bleach the next anime to become live action

[adrotate banner=”1″]Bleach is an ongoing manga/anime series that will be the next on the chopping block to get a US version. The plot sounds generic enough that they could transfer it to the US easily without changing much, unlike Akira. In fact, the same company that is continuing to do the American Akira is in charge of getting the US Bleach out, Warner Brothers! So expect no one even remotely Asian unless they need a big villain or something.

I don’t read Bleach, but the story is by Tite Kubo and features a ghost-spotting teenager named Ichigo with blonde hair (everyone thinks he bleaches his hair, thus the title!) who gets powers from evil ghosts named Hollows and can now fight them, so he sets out to protect people. Or something like that, I’m sure someone will come along and call me stupid for getting something wrong in the epic tale of Bleach!

Peter Segal – the director of Get Smart and Nutty Professor 2 – is producing and might direct, while the writer of Wrath of the Titans – Dan Mazeau – is doing the script.

via

Bleach Tigers

If the movie was about tigers who fight ghosts, I would watch it!

Gaiking the Movie

[adrotate banner=”1″]Gaiking was an anime produced from Toei before I was born about giant robots fighting aliens, which sort of got released in the US as some Shogun Warriors toys. This project is obscure enough that the new, upcoming, maybe live action (seriously, the chick in the trailer looks like a cartoon!) feature will not be raping any childhoods in the Tars Tarkas household! I guess having a door for Gaiking to pop out of is too much work, so he just emerges out from under a city street. Good job causing all sorts of civic engineering nightmares and busting the city’s budget repairing all that damage! Maybe Gaiking is invested heavily in companies that profit in repair destroyed cities, thus even if he trashes the planet, he still gets rich. Good job, Gaiking. Also note that somehow, the magic retractable helmet on the pilot girl doesn’t rip off all her loose, flowing blond locks. The pilot was a dude in the original anime, so that’s either a feminine dude, or the dude got Starbucked and is now a blond chick.

Gaiking will be released later this year in Japan, and in 2012 in the rest of the world for people who haven’t already gotten the Japanese DVD release. Seriously, release this stuff at the same time around the world, please!

Zac Efron might star in some anime, people upset

[adrotate banner=”1″]People are upset that Zac Efron of High School Musical 1 and 3 fame (HSM 2 was terrible so it won’t be mentioned here!) is in talks to star in some anime called Full Metal Panic. I don’t care about anime, but I understand anime fans don’t like this one bit and are even madder than when Keanu Reeves was announced as Spike in a Cowboy Bebop movie.

Mandalay Pictures has acquired theatrical rights to and will develop a big-screen version of “Full Metal Panic,” a Japanese manga series that blends action, comedy and high school romance.

The property derives from writer Shoji Gatoh’s series about a teenage anti-terrorist commando named Sousuke Sagara who is given the mission to protect a high-school girl with mystical powers.
….
Zac Efron’s name has surfaced in connection with “Panic,” with the actor holding a conversation on the project. Efron, already a heartthrob among the teen audiences to whom the project could appeal, is also honing the action-adventure side of his career with a potential attachment to the Warner Bros. adventure “Jonny Quest.”

Wow, Jonny Quest is still going forward? That’s been sitting around for years!
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