2016 wasn’t a great year for Paramount Pictures at the box office, what with the latest movie installments in such Paramount franchises as Star Trek, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Jack Reacher all performing below commercial expectations (though Arrival was a high note for the studio). Paramount is looking to reverse its fortunes in 2017 with movies such as the Dwayne Johnson-led Baywatch reboot and Michael Bay’s latest Transformers film, Transformers: The Last Knight, as well as this March’s live-action Ghost in the Shell anime/manga film adaptation, starring Scarlett Johansson.
Ghost in the Shell is directed by Rupert Sanders (Snow White and the Huntsman) and is slated to reach U.S. theaters near the end of March; meaning, a new trailer is due to be arriving sooner rather than later, at this stage in the movie’s pre-relase marketing game. That will reportedly be happening later this week, just in time for the theatrical release of Paramount’s Vin Diesel franchise sequel/revival, xXx: Return of Xander Cage.
Trailer Track, a proven reliable source of information regarding trailer launch dates, is reporting that the second Ghost in the Shell domestic trailer has already been sent out to U.S. theaters by Deluxe Digital. The trailer should be dropping online this Thursday too, before the preview begins screening in theaters attached to select prints of Return of Xander Cage. A new trailer for Ghost’s fellow March release, the X-Men spinoff film Logan, is also expected to go live online this Thursday.
The trailers released for Ghost in the Shell thus far (both the U.S. and international variety) focuses heavily on action and fighting-heavy footage of Johansson as “The Major,” an advanced cyborg who leads special ops team Section 9 in their ongoing battle against cybercrime in the film’s futuristic version of Hong Kong. It’s to be expected, then, that the new Ghost in the Shell trailer spends a bit more time on introducing the plot and main characters of the movie, for the many filmgoers out there who are unfamiliar with the Ghost in the Shell source material - either Masamune Shirow’s 1989 manga series or the first animated film adaptation directed by Mamoru Oshii in 1995.
Indeed, while the live-action Ghost in the Shell has prompted a significant backlash from the property’s longtime fanbase for its casting of Johansson as the traditionally-Japanese Major, a good number of U.S. filmgoers are probably still familiarizing themselves with Ghost in the Shell and had never heard of the brand, before learning of the live-action movie being on the way. The movie’s second trailer thus needs to not only leave a better impression on hardcore fans than past promos have, it also needs to win over the moviegoers who are currently more inclined to wait for something like Blade Runner 2049, to get their fix of cyberpunk entertainment on the big screen this year.
Be sure and check back here on Screen Rant this Thursday, for the brand-new Ghost in the Shell trailer launch!
Source: Trailer Track
- Ghost in the Shell Release Date: 2017-03-31
