A live-action adaptation of popular anime Ghost in the Shell has been in development for years, but this past year things really got off the ground with the casting of Scarlett Johansson in the lead role and Snow White and the Huntsman’s Rupert Sanders coming on board to direct. The ambitious project has just brought a new writer into the fold, as DreamWorks has tapped Straight Outta Compton scribe Jonathan Herman to write the latest draft of the screenplay.

THR reports that Herman has been brought in to write a new draft of the screenplay for Ghost in the Shell, based on the classic Japanese manga and subsequent anime films. Sanders became attached to direct the project in 2014, with Johansson officially signing on to play the lead role this year. Previous drafts of the screenplay were written by William Wheeler (Ray Donovan), Laeta Kalogridis (Terminator Genisys) and Jamie Moss (Street Kings).

Writer and artist Masamune Shirow’s Ghost in the Shell manga debuted in 1989 and subsequently inspired a 1995 animated film followed by a sequel in 2004. The series takes place in a future cyberpunk dystopia and centers on Motoko Kusunagi, a cyborg member of a special ops task force known as Public Security Section 9, a group of former military officials and police investigators tasked with combating terrorism.

It’s an incredibly ambitious project (to say the least), and one that will require a very, very good script in order to find success with both its existing fan base and general audiences who aren’t very familiar with the series. Johansson’s casting is an excellent start, and hiring the writer of one of the best films of 2015 doesn’t hurt, either.

Ghost in the Shell is set to hit theaters on March 31, 2017.

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