In another instance of Hollywood deciding through it’s actions that smart money hires a Caucasian star to play a bad ass minority, it has been leaked that Paramount Pictures, already in hot water for casting the very European actress Scarlett Johansson to play lead character Major Motoko Kusanagi in the live action remake of the hugely successful Japanese anime franchise “Ghost In The Shell,” screen tested post production digital effects to make white actors look more Asian.
This revelation, which was initially reported by ScreenCrush, citing “multiple independent sources close to the project,” as their reliable source, has since been picked up by many other news outlets including Business Insider, Esquire, Jezebel and IndieWire to name a few.
Originally it had been reported by ScreenCrush that the tests were conducted by Lola VFX, the same company that dramatically aged Brad Pitt for the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.” However in a recent update to that original ScreenCrush report, it has been noted that Lola VFX, via it’s managing director Thomas Nitmann has denied the involvement of the A-list visual effects house in these tests. However, Paramount Pictures, while making the clarification that they never did tests on Johansson does admit that they did order doing these controversial visual effects tests on a background actor involved in the film. Furthermore, as initially reported in ScreenCrush and elsewhere, upon seeing the test results, Paramount “ultimately discarded” the tests and have no future designs to use the technology on Johannson, who is of Danish and Polish descent, or any other actor in the movie.