Walt Disney Pictures has announced today that Rupert Sanders’ (Snow White and the Huntsman) live-action take on Ghost in the Shell, a DreamWorks Pictures production, has moved up from its April 14, 2017 release date to two weeks earlier on March 31, 2017.
Avengers: Age of Ultron and Lucy star Scarlett Johansson will headline the adaptation of Masamune Shirow’s iconic cyberpunk manga series about the members of a covert ops unit that take on technology-related crime. Ghost in the Shell was famously adapted into an animated feature in 1995.
The release date shift is likely inspired by the recently-announced Fast & Furious 8, which is set to debut April 14. Currently Ghost in the Shell opens a week after The Divergent Series: Allegiant Part 2 and the same week as the Untitled The Smurfs reboot.
Sanders will helm the feature from a script by William Wheeler with Avi Arad and Steven Paul producing with the backing of Steven Spielberg.
