The trailer for the remake does little to convey its plot or the details of the CGI-heavy world it is a part of, only making rather vague allusions to the idea that ScarJoвЂ™s Major was turned into a cyborg to save her life at the cost of her past identity. The filmвЂ™s plot is based on an extremely detailed world where humans have been able to augment their bodies and minds with technology, but often at a price. Mamoru OshiiвЂ™s 1995 anime film tells the story of the major and her elite counter-terrorism unit, Section 9, as they seek to find a sentient virus called the Puppet Master that has found a way to hack into the human minds, or вЂњghostsвЂќ that have been uploaded into cyborg shells. While вЂњGhostвЂќ promoted Johansson hard with pictures of her determined face and clips of her fighting and jumping off buildings in her nude-effect camouflage suit, it did a poor job explaining its premise to mainstream audiences who werenвЂ™t familiar with the MajorвЂ™s concept-heavy cyberpunk world. Instead, вЂњGhost in the ShellвЂќ left both bewildered.ДЄlso Read: 'The Boss Baby' Upsets Box Office With $50 Million Opening It has only gotten worse since then, with anime fans hijacking ParamountвЂ™s viral marketing campaign to make jokes about Johansson and other white actresses who took on Asian roles, like Tilda Swinton in вЂњDoctor StrangeвЂќ and Emma Stone in вЂњAloha.вЂќ In the few interviews Johansson did to promote the film, she defended her casting by saying that the MajorвЂ™s body is merely a cyborg shell that houses her human consciousness, and that she is essentially вЂњidentity-less.вЂќД«ut that defense did not fly with the Media Action Network for Asian-Americans, who noted that the plot of the remake establishes the Major as originally Japanese, proving that the actress had indeed taken on a role of another ethnicity.Д«ut while the whitewashing claims damaged the filmвЂ™s publicity, we have seen other recent films - namely вЂњDoctor StrangeвЂќ - overcome the controversy for a successful box office yield if the rest of the film was strong enough to earn critic and audience praise. The storm of bad publicity began a year ago, when the first images of ScarJo as Major Motoko Kusanagi were met with hostility and jokes about a white actress playing a Japanese character. Yes, the whitewashing did play a role in the filmвЂ™s demise, as it became the major point of conversation surrounding the film leading up to its release. So, what happened to вЂњGhost in the ShellвЂќ? Here are the reasons we think it flopped.ДЄlso Read: 19 Brutal 'Ghost in the Shell' Memes Twitter Used to Rip Hollywood Whitewashing (Photos)

The hope was that her reputation as one of the top action actresses in Hollywood - built mostly by her run as Black Widow in the Marvel movies - would be a major draw.Д«ut as it turns out, that has not been the case. That budget doesnвЂ™t include the costs of its marketing campaign, which was marked by billboards and posters featuring the face of its lead star, Scarlett Johansson.

That will fail to even reach the low expectations of independent box office trackers, who had the film making around $25 million in its first days in theaters. вЂњGhost in the ShellвЂќ is on path to be one of the biggest box office bombs thus far in 2017.ДЄgainst a reported budget of $110 million, the American adaptation of the critically acclaimed manga/anime franchise is going to make an estimated $18.6 million in its domestic opening weekend.

Ghost in the shell 1995 explanation