The the wake of similar arguments following movies like The Ghost In The Shell and Death Note, social media did not take the news in stride, and instead rebelled against it.
While fans of the source material have no problem with Skrein as an actor, the casting was seen as controversial due to the fact that Major Ben Daimio is of Japanese decent, and Skrien is not.
This backlash was apparently enough for Skrein to second guess his involvement with the production, and step away to make room for an actor of the proper ethnicity.
This situation all began to unfold last week, when the news came out that Ed Skrein was joining the cast of the developing Hellboy reboot – which is currently set to star David Harbour as the titular demonic hero and Milla Jovovich of the eponymous villain who will be “rising” through the course of the story.