RantCrush Top 5: April 5, 2017

The premiere of “Ghost in the Shell,” which is based on a Japanese manga and stars Scarlett Johansson, pretty much flopped over the weekend. It only made $19 million despite predictions that it would earn at least $30 million on its opening weekend. The film cost $110 million to make, so that’s not great news for the producers.

According to an executive for Paramount, the company that produced the film, it failed because of the highly publicized whitewashing accusations. A lot of people were upset that Paramount picked a white actress to portray the protagonist when there are so many talented Asian actresses to pick from.

Domestic distribution chief Kyle Davies claimed, “you’ve got a movie that is very important to the fanboys since it’s based on a Japanese anime movie. So you’re always trying to thread that needle between honoring the source material and make a movie for a mass audience.” He didn’t elaborate on his weird claim that a mass audience would object to an Asian actress in the leading role, but Johansson also defended the decision by saying that she essentially plays a robot with a human brain in a machine body. However, Hollywood has a long tradition of casting white actors in roles of people of color and it doesn’t look like that will end anytime soon.

Ghost In The Shell was absolutely terrible and it breaks my heart that Hollywood hasn’t changed since the 1910’s

— MacDoesIt (@Machaizelli) April 5, 2017

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.