For over 15 years James Cameron has been talking about making Battle Angel Alita. He was going to make it before Avatar, and then he promised it would be his follow-up, but then his commitment to Avatar 2 & 3 pushed it back. He still said it was coming though, although not for a long time.
Now though he’s decided that as he’ll be in Avatar-land for several more years, he’s going to hand the directing reins to someone else, with THR reporting that Robert Rodriguez is in talks to take the film on.
Battle Angel is a Manga adaptation about a damaged female cyborg who is revived but has no memories. Once rebuilt, she discovers she has instinctive knowledge of martial arts and sets out to discover more about her past, which takes her into a world of brutal sports and organised crime.
Cameron comments, “Robert and I have been looking for a film to do together for years, so I was pumped when he said he wanted to do Battle Angel. “He’s very collaborative and we’re already like two kids building a go-kart, just having fun riffing creatively and technically. This project is near and dear to me, and there’s nobody I trust more than Robert, with his technical virtuosity and rebel style, to take over the directing reins. We’re looking forward to learning a lot from each other while we make a kick-ass epic.”
Rodriguez adds,”Battle Angel is an incredibly rich and vibrant epic in the tradition of Jim Cameron’s spectacular, character-driven films. Getting to work from Jim’s terrific and visionary script while learning the cutting edge techniques he’s pioneered is a master class in filmmaking. It’s an honor to explore the world of Alita along with Jim and Jon, whose films have impacted me for decades.
Cameron will still produce, alongside his Lightstorm Entertainment partner Jon Landau