When Paramount Pictures first announced that they were making a live action movie of the Ghost in the Shell comic, and that they had decided to cast american actress Scarlett Johansson as the lead Asian character The Major, some of the fans went crazy. There were forum threads, tweets, Facebook comments and articles written on how Paramount was whitewashing and killing off one of the best comics of all time. Now, film producer and comic book adaptation powerhouse Avi Arad has spoken about the controversy, and it sounds like he's not too concerned about those accusations of whitewashing. According to him, everyone he's talked to thinks the casting choice is "great."
In an interview, Arad said: "Here's the thing, the movie's going to come out and either they're going to feel like, 'Wow, I loved this in one format, and I feel really inspired by how it became a live-action version', or they're not gonna like it, and casting will be a piece of that, but it's not going to be the only piece."
What did you think of the casting choice?