kunonabi
Member
I did but I was drowned out by all the best movie ever talk when it came out.
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Ghost in the Shell bombs at the box office
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I did but I was drowned out by all the best movie ever talk when it came out.
Dash_Riprock
Member
Glad it bombed, though whitewashing had little to do with it. Marketing just sucked.
Still, this is the like the 4th Hollywood blockbuster that used the "Whites are more bankable!" excuse and it still bombed.
Still, this is the like the 4th Hollywood blockbuster that used the "Whites are more bankable!" excuse and it still bombed.
Passion of the Christ?
That's what I'm saying. If you make a good anime movie, people will come out to support it. America doesn't have some wide dislike of anime, just shit movies.
For anyone that has seen the original GitS, it probably translates a lot better to a live action adaptation than most anime.
The failure of this film has nothing to do with the source material. It has everything to do with the controversy surrounding it, which has created bad press from the moment the casting was announced. Not a single ounce of positive press.
Stop blaming the source material. Not like the film is based on GitS Arise. But even if it was, that wouldn't change the fact that ScarJo is playing a Japanese woman inside a White body. The controversy caused this to fall, not anime adaptations as a whole.
The failure of this film has nothing to do with the source material. It has everything to do with the controversy surrounding it, which has created bad press from the moment the casting was announced. Not a single ounce of positive press.
Stop blaming the source material. Not like the film is based on GitS Arise. But even if it was, that wouldn't change the fact that ScarJo is playing a Japanese woman inside a White body. The controversy caused this to fall, not anime adaptations as a whole.
The Artisan
Member
i feel you. to be fair though, maybe liam neeson was portraying a man of middle eastern descent.
edit: and i guess that does still fall under whitewashing coz why the fuck wouldn't you get a middle eastern actor for the role
Thank god.
jack_package_200
Banned
And now Paramount is banking on the success of Transformers 5 and Baywatch.
TDLink
Member
Lupin the 3rd
UnemployedVillain
Member
Kite
Member
I think the lesson to be learned from this is that adapting an anime so closely bring no advantages since there is no large built in fanbase here (compared to something like LotR or most of these comic book movies whose heroes have name recognition. I may not have read any recent Spiderman stuff but I damn sure know the name), and many things that work in 2d looks plain goofy in 3d. And being inferior to the original while being so similar is going to turn off any fans that exist plus the white washing thing..
The way forward with anime adaptations by Hollywood is to either be inspired by a show like Matrix + Ghost in the Shell, or mine an anime/manga/novel for ideas but change things up enough and change the names like Edge of Tomorrow.
The way forward with anime adaptations by Hollywood is to either be inspired by a show like Matrix + Ghost in the Shell, or mine an anime/manga/novel for ideas but change things up enough and change the names like Edge of Tomorrow.
Well hopefully it hits Netflix sooner rather than later, I'm still curious to see it but not enough to actually go to the theatre for it for various reasons. Everything I've read made it seem like Zack Snyder lifting scenes from different adaptations but worse, especially since it's removed from the context that made it work in the original version. It would explain how anyone thought the "twist" was a good idea.
Scarlett actually has the highest cumulative domestic box office gross of any actress ever. Even if there is an easy argument that any number of people could have pulled off Black Widow, it will be awhile before she is hurting for work.
Megalosaro
Banned
Yup. Especially first gundam.
Amuro - Canadian
Bright - British
Mirai - japanese
Kai ?
Ryu Jose - hispaic
Frau - German
Hayato- japanese
Razgriz-Specter
Member
I think Ra's gets a break because for many he was a pretty shit character to them before that.
Suddenly people all on the Ra's bandwagon.
He was advertised as Japanese
However when Arrow cast a white-ish actor people had a problem with it.
iRAWRasaurus
Banned
Doesn't berserk take place in some type of middle age European settings? Or inspired by.I want a live action Berserk movie starring Chris Evans as Guts
jack_package_200
Banned
It would lose all of its personality in live action. The animation gave Lupin the 3rd so much of its charm.
PinkyMonkey
Banned
What if Johansson wasn't in this movie, imagine how much worse it would have done!
GuitarAtomik
Member
Full. Metal. Alchemist.
Non-Asian centric. Unique setting. Room for lots of humor and action. Simple premise to sell (Ed wants to get his brother's body back). Lots of room for sequels.
I didn't say their careers would be over, but the climb would be even harder. Just think about Asian actors like the lead from Ninja Assassin or The Warrior's Way. Where have their careers gone in Hollywood? Did those movies jumpstart other Asian-lead films?
I feel like things have dovetailed from my initial post saying that I want Asian American actors to get a chance at lleading actual good movies instead of being handed shyte projects from Hollywood.
Technically Transformers is anime in origin.
UnemployedVillain
Member
Mobile Suit Gundam would translate over incredibly well. CG has already reached the point where it can be done and look good, but you know it would be dumbed down and awfully done. Hell, if they didn't want to make it huge budget with space battles, they could keep it on Earth and make it a smaller scale story like 08th MS Team of War in a Pocket
Dark Ninja
Member
Well yeah it wouldn't get quarter of that budget without her IF it were even gotten the ok to be made. Since people have been trying for almost 2 decades to make it.
PrivateWHudson
Member
Now that it's out, could someone clear up that sneak peak segment that was released the other week? In the final cut, did she fall vertically from the roof top and then burst into the room horizontally, or was there a transition shot where they show her on a balcony or something? Weird editing like that killed the action for me.
The failure of this film is that it had bad marketing, bad reviews, and Scar Jo can't propel a movie to box office bank all on her own.
The general movie going audience has probably never heard of the term "whitewashing".
CassidyIzABeast
Member
I'm sure this will make 40M in China for reasons unknown.
_/¯
Hari Seldon
Member
Yeah that is what I'm getting at (and what I would rather have lol). This is getting too OT for this thread. Netflix should be commended for having a show where 95% of the cast is Asian. I'm just salty that the show was cancelled lol.
Wouldn't have worked. There have been a lot of anime movies with Japanese actors. None of them are big.
ElBoxyBrown
Banned
The blu-ray is already cheap. You can get it for $8 on Amazon.
This, as unappealing as it sounds, was what they should've done from the start.
But I suppose the GITS license was burning a hole in their pocket and they really wanted to do something with it, they just went about it in the dumbest way possible.
Pacific Rim is basically an anime as far as I'm concerned.
That movie enjoyed more than 400 million worldwide.
Yep that's me. I'm not familiar with the source material at all, and the trailer made it look dumb as hell to me.
There's a more than decent chance that it wouldn't have been made without Scarlett (or someone comparable). Too bad for Paramount, "never been made" would have been the smarter choice.
I think they lesson they'll take is that putting a recognizable name and face on a poster won't save a bad movie from getting bad returns.
Which will give them less excuses to replace minority characters with white leads.
So Cowboy Bebop without the exact same Ed and the main storyline is "just some generic space western"? The show's episodic by nature and even its own film has nothing to do with the main storyline, its style, characters and themes are what makes it. The movie shows that those can be translated to feature-length quite nicely, why couldn't a Western team do it?
Well there are over a billion people there, even a fraction of that many people being mildly interested in it is significant.
FinalStageBoss
Banned
Nice
It's a bad film with unforgivable white washing elements.
I actually had hopes for this film once. Shame on me.
Oh, right I said this in the beginning.
I actually had hopes for this film once. Shame on me.
Oh, right I said this in the beginning.
Today's Hollywood + Ghost in the Shell?
Yeah, that's not gonna work.
And I guess in the Japanese live adaptations L should have been white instead of Japanese?
I also have no familiarity with the source material, but the trailers looked utterly joyless.
I waited for reviews, and they were mostly negative. Downgraded to maybe a rental.
jack_package_200
Banned
Most of my friends and family (most of them white) were baffled by the trailers and marketing. "I don't get what this is supposed to be." Maximum confusion was achieved during the GitS Super Bowl ad.
Huh, A Cure for Wellness had a Super Bowl ad as well and it bombed at the box office. That isn't related to GitS but its just kinda interesting to think about.
Angelus Errare
Banned
Your Avatar argument doesn't make any sense (Assuming you're talking about the Last Airbender). The show is HEAVILY influenced and borrows many cultural norms from various Inuit cultures as well Chinese (the writing within the world is stylized Hanzi, not to mention the fighting styles are all Chinese martial arts) and South Eastern/Pacific Islander cultures. One could argue it's very insulting to heavily use their cultural norms as the centerpiece of your fictional work (and invoke real cultural references in nearly every episode) but make all the characters white in the movie.
And I'm willing to wager your argument as to why DiCaprio in Akira is whitewashing is the same as why people aren't happy with GiTS, doubly so given the ending of the movie.
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