I disagree. I think the reason this didn't do well is because they screwed to much with canon. Fundamentally, Kusanagi never had a body- she's always been a cyborg. That makes the entire origin story here spurious, and creates conflict that never really existed.
Secondly, Scarlett Johansson was just wrong for the part- Kusanagi's shell is a lot younger and slimmer. The height is about right, but everything else is wrong. Additionally, Kusanagi is not as conflicted as Johansson chose to play her- at best, she philosophically reflects on her existence, not with such Hollywood-overacted angst.
So: what you have is a concept that is loved by millions, perverted and altered just for the sake of Hollywood, an actress who does not reflect the iconography of the original, and who has no concept of how the character should be played; and a misguided origin story that spits on canon. The core audience - the readers and viewers of the original - were the ones that would have spent the money to see it. But, by pissing on the legacy, they just stayed away.
..Joe
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