If there was any doubt that Scarlett Johansson was a viable female action star, Lucy silenced such questions by making $394 million worldwide in theaters last year. Prior to headlining her own film, Johansson showed she could play an action hero with her performances as Marvel’s Black Widow in Iron Man 2, The Avengers and Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Coming off leading two films in 2014 with Lucy and Under the Skin, the actress is taking another big role in a live-action adaptation of one of the most popular Japanese manga and anime films, Ghost in the Shell. According to Variety‘s Justin Kroll, Johansson has signed on to star in the production. The futuristic story follows a special-ops security agency in pursuit of a hacker. The team is led by a woman whose body is almost entirely robotic due to a childhood accident. That leaves her open to attacks by hackers.
Last October, Deadline reported that Johansson had been offered $10 million to star in Ghost in the Shell, but there’s no word as to whether or not that will actually be her paycheck for the role. Obviously, that’s big money for any lead actor these days, but especially notable for a woman carrying a potential action franchise. But the success of Johansson’s recent projects has obviously given her that kind of earning power with studios. How many other current actresses can make such a claim?
Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) is attached to the film as its director, which will be produced by DreamWorks.
Anime will eventually be a gold mine for Hollywood: keep concepts and set pieces, jettison nonsense plots, reform half baked characters.
— Devin Faraci (@devincf) January 5, 2015
