The anime movie of Ghost in the Shell, released in 1995, has inspired films such as The Matrix and Avatar by James Cameron but, today, 26 years after its release in cinemas, a question still haunts fans of the opera: “What was the real budget of the film?”
Finally revealed the true budget of Ghost in the Shell (1995)?
The neo-noir cyberpunk thriller directed by Mamoru Oshii it has always been at the center of a controversy about what its actual construction costs were.
The Japanese box art of the VHS in fact claimed that the budget had been 600 million yen (or just over four and a half million euros).
According to the VHS box, it’s 600 million yen. But that’s 総 製作 費, it may be inflated to include all manner of peripheral stuff to sound important. Oshii said it was less than Patlabor 2, but I don’t know how much that was.https: //t.co/bqz1y5mtxD
– Renato Rivera Rusca （レ ナ ト ・ リ ベ ラ ・ ル ス カ） (@RENATOLOGY) September 18, 2021
In fact, it seems like it cost a lot less to make the film, something like 330 million Yen, as recently stated by the producer of the project Shigeru Watanabe on Twitter:
押 井 さ ん に 悪 気 は あ り ま せ ん が 、 数字 は プ ロ デ ュ ー サ ー と し て 覚 え て い ま す。 「機動 警察 パ ト レ イ バ ー 2」 の 現場 制作 費 費 」の 現場 ? 制作」
– SiegelWood.44 (@ Watari116) September 18, 2021
A difference from VHS box art that could also be due to all the costs associated with the film, things like advertising and marketing campaigns, appropriately increased to make it seem like the film cost a lot more than it actually happened.
Closed story then? Not really.
Oshii, in an interview in 2020, claimed that producing Ghost in the Shell cost less than Patlabor 2: The Movie; and Watanabe himself, in another tweet, stated that Patlabor 2: The Movie had a production budget of 220 million yen (so even less than GITS’s 330 million yen).
The word an end to the issue of the budget of Ghost in the Shell will probably come only when Watanabe will show, to fans, on Twitter, the documents that prove his claims. Documents that the manufacturer has claimed to have (but no one has seen yet).
