Movies like Ghost in the Shell are what make me glad I’m not a box office prognosticator. On the one hand, the movie is a blockbuster adaptation of the popular Japanese manga that stars a handful of popular international movie stars. That’s good! On the other hand, we’re still six-plus months away from the film’s release date and it has already generated more negative publicity than an entire season’s worth of summer movies. That’s bad! Good luck figuring out those leading indicators, experts.

I’m not sure how Ghost in the Shell can make up lost ground with fans still upset by our report of racial shifting VFX tests, but maybe the best thing for the film will be to get back to normal business of the Hollywood news grind. And look, according to the folks at Kotaku, someone leaked a bunch of test photos of the cast members. That feels like a normal blockbuster-type news item and not another PR kiss of death!

Odds are if you clicked on this link then you know more about the characters in Ghost in the Shell than I do, so I’ll defer to your better judgment and/or your ability to Wikipedia the character descriptions if you want more information on each. My snap judgment, though, is that the production design does seem to be going in a slightly different direction than the characters in the anime. The producer of Ghost in the Shell had recently talked up his film’s emphasis on the “international” appeal of the series, and while many have argued that this isn’t an accurate description of Ghost in the Shell’s place in Japanese culture, it does leave the door open for the live-action adaptation to be its own thing. All I know is, I’m glad I’m not the one trying to figure out how to sell the darn thing.

Ghost in the Shell stars Scarlett JohanssonMichael Pitt, Pilou Asbæk, Rila Fukushima, Takeshi Kitano, and Chin Han and is currently set to release on March 31, 2017.

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