Ghost In The Shell: 10 Things You Need To Know

8. ...Or The First Live-Action Ghost In The Shell

Attempts to get a live-action Ghost In The Shell film off the ground have been going on for years, ever since DreamWorks and Steven Spielberg acquired the rights back in 2008. In that time multiple producers, writers and even actors have come and gone, with the studio struggling to properly greenlight the picture (probably not helped by the sucky track record for live-action anime adaptations). During that time, however, a much smaller group started to piece together their own cinematic rendering of Shirow's original manga. Project 2501 began as a €œtribute€ to Ghost In The Shell; what it actually is is the opening five minutes or so of the original nineties anime film by Mamoru Oshii, but remade in real life €“ with plenty of CGI enhancements, natch. If you want a best-case scenario of what the Hollywood Ghost In The Shell could wind up looking, you could do worse than checking out Project 2501's work. A labour of love intended for fun rather than profit, the project involved a bunch of collaborators coming together to riff on a film that was a comment on the uber-connected society of the future. Funny eh.
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Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/