The live-action adaptation of classic anime Ghost In The Shell has become one of the most talked-about upcoming potential blockbusters of early 2017, thanks largely to a stylish series of trailers and star Scarlett Johansson - whose presence has propelled seemingly niche releases like Lucy and Under The Skin to unexpectedly strong showings in global theaters. But her casting has also drawn controversy over the fact that her character was originally created as Japanese.

Now, check out a new poster for the film showing off Johansson and other characters.

Paramount Pictures debuted the new poster, which sports a stylized look reflecting the anime and manga origins of the original poster. The artwork features Johansson's cyborg heroine "The Major" flanked by other characters and features of the upcoming film, which is set in a near-future where augmentation of human brains and bodies with robotics has created entirely new realms of crime and law enforcement. Take a look at the poster:

The title, "Ghost In The Shell," refers to the potential for human consciousness to be transferred into mechanical bodies. As the poster highlights, Johansson's Major exists as the result of such technology, with a bionic body that she uses to fight futuristic threats while also dealing with questions of her own relative humanity (or lack thereof).

While the film is among the early year's most anticipated films and has drawn a great deal of attention for a property that audiences outside of devoted Japanese Animation fans had previously heard of, the Ghost in the Shell has become perhaps even more well known as a lightning rod for controversy over the criticism of "whitewashing" of nonwhite roles in Hollywood adaptations. While the film remains set in a future reflecting the distinctly Japanese vision of future-tech as conceived in the original anime and features several actors of Asian descent, many remain angered at the casting of a white American actress to portray an iconic Japanese heroine.

Though some have maintained that the character's ethnicity is not necessarily static, as she is not technically a human being in the conventional sense, the controversy has continued to follow the production - and was only amplified when bombshell rumors last year revealed that the studio had at one point considered using CGI-manipulation to make various white actors appear to have Asian facial-features in the finished film (it is not certain that Johansson would have been the recipient of such post-production reworking). Whether such concerns translate to a less-than-stellar box office, however, remains to be seen.

Next: The Riskiest Box Office Bets of 2017

Source: Paramount Pictures