Ghost in the Shell (2017)

Built as a live-action take on the property, the film pairs Rupert Sanders behind the camera with a cast headed by Scarlett Johansson as the Major, Pilou Asbaek as Batou, Michael Pitt as Kuze, and Takeshi Kitano as Section 9 chief Daisuke Aramaki. Distributed by Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks on a budget near 110 million dollars, it premiered in Tokyo on March 16, 2017 before opening in the United States on March 31, including IMAX screenings.

In a near future where most people carry cybernetic enhancements, the industry leader Hanka Robotics secretly pursues a shell able to house a human brain rather than an AI. Mira Killian, presented as the lone survivor of a cyberterror attack that killed her parents, becomes the test subject after her body is judged beyond saving, and CEO Cutter has her trained into a counter-terror operative over her designer Dr. Ouelet's objections. A year on, Killian holds the rank of Major in Section 9 and works with Batou and Togusa under Aramaki, all while glitching hallucinations and thin memories gnaw at her. Chasing a hacker known only as Kuze, she dives an infected AI, gets traced into a Yakuza trap that blinds Batou and wrecks her body, and draws Cutter's fury.

As Kuze murders Hanka researchers, the team realizes Ouelet is a target and foils the attempt, then learns from the captured hacker that Kuze is a failed subject of the same program, numbered 2571, who urges Killian to doubt her memories before freeing her. Ouelet confesses that Killian was the ninety-eighth subject and the only survivor, her past a fabricated implant, then helps her flee and is killed by Cutter, who frames her as rogue. Following her real memories, Killian discovers she was once Motoko Kusanagi, an anti-augmentation radical abducted by Hanka. Cutter unleashes a spider-tank; Killian tears out its motor at the cost of her arm, the dying Kuze offers to merge his ghost with hers, and after the team rescues her, Aramaki executes Cutter with her consent. Repaired and owning her identity as Motoko, she reconnects with her mother and returns to Section 9.

The adaptation had a long road to the screen. Production I.G secured live-action rights in the mid-2000s and shopped the property to Hollywood, with DreamWorks winning out in 2008 partly because of Steven Spielberg's personal fondness for the story. A string of writers cycled through the script, and Rupert Sanders came aboard to direct in January 2014. Margot Robbie was an early contender for the lead before Scarlett Johansson accepted a reported ten-million-dollar offer, and casting rounded out through 2015 and 2016 with Pilou Asbaek, Michael Pitt, and Takeshi Kitano. Principal photography ran in Wellington, New Zealand starting in February 2016, with additional shooting in Hong Kong, and the finished film reached DVD, Blu-ray, 3D, and 4K formats on July 25, 2017.