The folks at Deadline got to follow up on the Hollywood live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell with its creative marketing during the season finale of Mr. Robot last week. While it caught a lot of people off guard, the impact of it is something that’s harder to measure, at least by casual observers. According to RelishMix, the “glitch campaign” that Paramount ran earned 12.3 million viewers on the official channel with the opening clip earning over 2 million alone. The service also notes that the “#TheGhostInTheShell hashtags on Twitter and Instagram are triggering positive and enthusiastic conversations.”
“It’s a movie about glitches and technology, and that fits well thematically with Mr. Robot,” says Paramount’s co-president of domestic marketing Rebecca Mall. A former Google executive of industry, Mall also oversees the Melrose lot’s digital marketing initiatives.
Megan Colligan, Paramount’s president of worldwide distribution and marketing, says, “The great thing about season premieres and season finales is that they’re like live sporting events: People want to watch them in real time. Because of the social media explosion, there’s a fear of missing out or having a plot detail spoiled. We knew with the Mr. Robot finale we’d get that extra boost of people who would be sharing on social.”
Adds Colligan: “Ghost in the Shell is so original in its own right that it had to have a special execution to kick it off. We needed a launch that was as unique and original as the property itself. You’ll soon learn about the glitch, it’s one of the most important parts of the film’s storytelling. It was important to present the earliest advertising for this film as a glitch instead of something more traditional.”
Interest in the film is certainly mixed among the hardcore and longtime fans but it’s an area that one hopefully will see various segments attempt to market well as the manga publishers should be getting new editions ready to slide into bookstores for the holidays to seed interest. And, well, it’d be lovely if we could get the Standalone Complex TV series released again as well, you know?
The feature is set to debut on March 31st, 2017 and is directed by Rupert Sanders while being produced by Avi Arad and Steven Paul with Mark Saurian as executive producer. Scarlett Johansson stars as the lead, Pilou Asbæk as Batou, Michael Pitt as the Laughing Man, Juliette Binoche as Dr. Ouelet, Beat Takashi as Daisuke Aramaki and Kaori Momoi. The members of Section 9 are played by Chin Han, Danusia Samal, Lasarus Ratuere, Yutaka Izumihara, Tuwanda Manyimo and Rila Fukushima.
Property concept: Based on the internationally-acclaimed sci-fi property, Ghost in the Shell follows the Major, a special ops, one-of-a-kind human-cyborg hybrid, who leads the elite task force Section 9. Devoted to stopping the most dangerous criminals and extremists, Section 9 is faced with an enemy whose singular goal is to wipe out Hanka Robotic’s advancements in cyber technology.
