Noticing that Universal had announced Fast and Furious 8 to release on the same day as Rupert Sanders‘ Ghost In The Shell, Disney has bumped-up the release date two weeks earlier to March 31st, 2017. This makes perfect sense as Furious 7 is becoming a monster earning over $1.3 billion at the worldwide box office, so going head-to-head with it’s sequel suicide for the budding sci-fi franchise.
Scarlett Johansson stars as The Major in the Dreamworks adaptation of the massively popular Japanese cyberpunk manga and anime. It centres around a government sanctioned group of a specialized police force that tackles technology based crime and terrorism. These officers including Johansson’s character are a mix of human and cyborg/augmented cops. The Major has a completely constructed robotic body sporting bright blue eyes while her conciseness is still human, meaning that she specifically doesn’t need to be played by an Asian actress. On the other hand, we need a futuristic Japanese setting and the supporting cast would need to be Asian to be considered faithful to the source material.
Johansson recently confirmed that production will begin sometime between January-February.
With FURIOUS 8 (4/14/17) moving in on its turf, it’s no surprise Disney’s GHOST IN THE SHELL moves up 2 weeks to 3/31.
— Exhibitor Relations (@ERCboxoffice) April 30, 2015
SOURCE: ERC BOX OFFICE