What happened to the prominent Ghost in the Shell music score by Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe? The internet is awash with questions and theories.

In my previous article, “Something happened to the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack, and thousands of fans want answers”, I described how the Ghost in the Shell OST by Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe was shelved at the last moment, and the outcry from fans who started a campaign to get it released.

Petition: Release the Ghost in the Shell (2017) soundtrack by Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe #GITSost

Some responses to the article on discussion boards suggested that the album cancellation may be due to the movie being a box office disappointment, or that over a thousand signatures on the petition and tens of thousands of Youtube views on snippets of the score are not enough to motivate an album release.

Such comments betray ignorance of the nature of film score publishing. Original scores are released for everything: obscure TV shows, flopped movies —even albums that almost nobody asks for get released. For example, the label which was scheduled to release the Ghost in the Shell OST, Lakeshore Records, also released the score for the new CHIPS movie.

So “maybe it’s about the money” is not a satisfactory answer. Furthermore, the situation is made more mysterious by various factors:

Why was this album cancelled at the last moment, despite pre-orders?

Why has Paramount not said anything?

Why has Lakeshore Records not said anything, except that they won’t release it?

Why has the co-composer, Clint Mansell, not said anything all about Ghost in the Shell?

This is the biggest Hollywood mystery of 2017. Ghost in the Shell was one of the most heavily-advertised movies of the year, with a large budget and an A-list star, and Clint Mansell and Lorne Balfe are well-known composers who created a music score that is still in demand long after the movie left theaters.

What the heck happened?

As a petitioner succinctly puts it, “You don’t just cancel something and not have an explanation.”

I have emailed a few sites and entertainment writers with a heads-up about this story, but alas they are too busy writing their quota of posts about whatever trailers were released this morning.

Regardless of whether journalists wake up to this mystery and start asking Paramount execs for answers, the movement of people clamoring for this album will keep growing until someone, somewhere, gives us this album.