The upcoming reboot of the “Hellboy” franchise is the latest Hollywood film to trigger a backlash for casting a white actor in a role originally conceived as Asian-American.

Earlier this week, British actor Ed Skrein scored the part of Major Ben Daimio in “Hellboy: Rise of the Blood Queen.” After news broke that Skrein would play Daimio, a Japanese-American ex-Marine in the original comic book series, critics accused Hollywood of “whitewashing” yet another Asian character.

“It’s frustrating,” said Robert Chan, president of MANAA — the Media Action Network for Asian Americans.

“I think the casting in ‘Hellboy’ is more of the same,” from Hollywood, Chan added. “You’re taking an Asian character and casting a non-Asian into the role.”

Guy Aoki, MANAA’s founding president, likewise blasted the casting move, calling it inappropriate.

“There’s a cultural and racial tie-in to the Daimio character where his grandmother was supposed to be a Japanese Imperial assassin during World War II,” Aoki noted. “It just doesn’t make sense to lose that cultural context.”

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Representatives for Skein did not respond to a request for comment.

But on social media the actor celebrated landing the role, tweeting: “Excited to join the #Hellboy cast as Ben Daimio.”

Other Twitter users weren’t nearly as excited, with some fans even calling for a boycott of the film. A spokesperson for Lionsgate, the movie’s distributor, declined to comment on the controversy.

“Hellboy” joins a growing list of movies criticized for tapping non-Asian actors to fill roles originally written as Asian.

Earlier this year, controversy dogged the Japanese anime remake “Ghost in the Shell,” which starred Scarlett Johansson as a cyborg. This week’s Netflix release, the Japanese manga adaptation “Death Note,” also drew criticism for ditching Asian characters after setting the project in Seattle instead of Japan.

“Death Note” director Adam Wingard down played the controversy, telling Vulture.com the adaptation tells a new story with new characters.

“It’s not just taking a character and trying to say a white kid is a Japanese kid. It is a whole new thing,” Wingard said.

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Director Cameron Crowe also faced a backlash after he cast Emma Stone as Allison Ng, a half-Hawaiian, half-Chinese military pilot in his 2015 film “Aloha.” M. Night Shyamalan’s 2010 film “The Last Airbender” was also accused of whitewashing characters originally written as Asian.

“Aloha,” “The Last Airbender,” and “Ghost in the Shell” all underperformed at the box office, Aoki noted.

“Most of those films that whitewash a character, they flop and lose a lot of money. ‘Ghost in the Shell’ was a major flop,” he said.

According to Boxofficemojo.com, “Ghost in the Shell” earned $40 million domestically on a $110 million budget.

Paramount Pictures blamed the film’s less than impressive box office returns in part on negative reviews spurred by accusations of whitewashing.

“Yes, they’re feeling it at the box office but I think that [studio executives] kind of give excuses, saying, ‘Well, it didn’t work this time but maybe that’s a one-off,’” Chan, the MANAA president, said, “As opposed to saying, ‘Well, we want to stay true to the characters and the origins.’ They keep doing it.”

Phil Yu, creator of the Angry Asian Man blog, which covers Asian-American culture, also criticized the decision to award the Ben Daimio role to a non-Asian actor.

“It’s not like there are a lot of Asian Americans in pop culture. So when something comes along when the source material specifically calls for an Asian-American character, that’s a great opportunity to showcase or highlight Asian-American talent,” he said. “It definitely feels like we’re being ignored and definitely erased.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.