Ghost In The Shell Adds Michael Pitt As The Laughing Man

Though it was previously reported that British actor Sam Riley would be playing this character, according to Variety it’ll actually be Michael Pitt (Boardwalk Empire, Funny Games) who will bring the villainous Laughing Man to life in director Rupert Sanders’ live-action take on classic manga/anime, Ghost In The Shell.

This Catcher In The Rye-obsessed baddie is described as “the ultimate hacker, capable of such feats as hijacking multiple video streams simultaneously, taking over someone’s cybernetic brain entirely and editing his own images out of someone’s cybernetic eyes, and all in real time.”

He’ll be the chief antagonist to Scarlett Johansson’s “augmented-cybernetic human” leader of the covert Section 9 team, Major Motoko Kusanagi. Danish actor Pilou Asbaek has also siged on as Kusanagi’s second in command, Batou.

Avi Arad and Steven Paul are producing this big screen adaptation of Ghost in Shell from a script by Bill Wheeler. The movie is scheduled for release on March 31, 2017.