Movies With Butter

Marvel clearly isn't in any rush to make a Black Widow movie, and although Scarlett Johansson is presumably on the hook for appearances in any number of the studio's assorted projects, her lack of a franchise to shoulder on her own leaves her free to star in all kinds of interesting stuff in her downtime -- like, say, Under the Skin or Her.

Perhaps we can add DreamWorks' long-mooted live-action Ghost in the Shell to that list. Deadline reports that the studio has offered Johansson $10 million to take the lead in their version of the classic manga, which previously inspired the animated Ghost in the Shell (1995) and Innocence (2004). As with the live-action Akira that keeps staggering back to life at Warner Bros., this isn't the easiest project in the world to get off the ground, but if DreamWorks is waving this kind of money around, they're clearly serious about getting things going.

Johansson, meanwhile, is perfect for pretty much any role at this point -- and as she so ably demonstrated with Lucy earlier this year (and her widening circle of Black Widow appearances in Marvel's cinematic universe), audiences love to see her in action mode. Perhaps the biggest question at this point is whether she feels like being solely responsible for a big-budget picture -- much as we'd all love to see a standalone Black Widow movie, she's kind of got the best of both worlds at this point.

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