New Ghost in the Shell trailer gives a first good look at its villain, plus fresh footage

If you’re looking forward to the live-action adaptation of Ghost in the Shell, today’s your lucky day: Paramount has released its Super Bowl spot for the movie a few days early. The spot contains some footage from the first trailer, but there’s also a brief new look at The Major (Scarlett Johansson) beating the crap out of someone and an eerie Face/Off moment in which we’re reminded that the core of this movie will center on the character searching for clues about her mysterious past.

The architect behind that chilling final moment is Hideo Kuze (Michael Pitt), who, in the anime, has a secret past with The Major as they were both placed into full cyborg bodies as children (most of Shell’s robo-people replace bits here and there). We saw a quick glimpse of him in the first trailer, but he steps into the light for a second near the end of this spot and gives us our first proper look at him. In the anime, Kuze is a cyborg with a sculpted face, meaning his mouth never moves when he speaks. From the small amount of footage we have of him here, it looks like the live-action movie may be keeping that element of the character intact.

Directed by Rupert Sanders and starring Scarlett Johansson, Pilou Asbaek, Michael Pitt, Takeshi Kitano, Juliette Binoche, Kaori Momoi, and Chin Han, Ghost in the Shell will be released in theaters on March 31, 2017.

Image: Paramount

Ben is an entertainment journalist who has written about movies online for nearly a decade. He loves the Fast & Furious franchise, prefers Indiana Jones to Star Wars, and will defend the ending of Lost until his dying day. He shook Bill Murray's hand once (so he's got that going for him, which is nice). Ben lives in Los Angeles with his wife.