Earlier this year, it was announced that the live-action movie based on Masamune Shirow’s popular manga Ghost in the Shell would be directed by Snow White and the Huntsman filmmaker Rupert Sanders. Now the film might have its star, too.
According to The Wrap, The Wolf of Wall Street actress Margot Robbie is in early talks to play the lead role in Ghost in the Shell, which is being produced by Avi Arad after Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks acquired the rights to the project in 2008.
The original Ghost in the Shell manga was published from 1989 to 1997 and followed a futuristic counter-cyberterrorist organization in Japan known as Public Security Section 9. The team was led by a cybernetically augmented, female agent, Major Motoko Kusanagi — the role Robbie is most likely in talks to play. Ghost In The Shell has spawned multiple animated movies, anime series, and video games over the years, including the 1995 animated film Ghost in the Shell, which was a critical and commercial success both in Japan and here in the U.S.
The most recent writer attached to the live-action film is William Wheeler (The Hoax, The Reluctant Fundamentalist).
As for Robbie, the Australian actress starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street, which was nominated for five Academy Awards. She’ll appear on the big screen next in Tarzan with Alexander Skarsgard.
There’s currently no release date set for Ghost in the Shell.
