The 2019 Robert Rodriguez / James Cameron collaboration Alita: Battle Angel wasn’t a big hit at the domestic box office, where it made just under $86 million, but the movie got a much better reception in other countries, with the international box office adding $319 million to its total haul. Although the movie made almost $405 million on a $170 million production budget, we still haven’t gotten a sequel, despite Rodriguez, Cameron, and star Rosa Salazar all saying they’re ready and willing to return to the world of Alita. It’s not very surprising that we didn’t get a sequel right away, for a few reasons. For one thing, that box office amount is less than what the 2017 version of The Mummy made on a smaller budget, and we saw how that movie blew up Universal’s monster plans. For another, Alita was released by 20th Century Fox, which was absorbed by Disney soon after the film’s release. Add to that the fact that Cameron has been very busy with his Avatar sequels, and the long delay stars to make sense. But now, six years after the movie was released, Cameron has some good news: he says that he and Rodriguez are making progress on Alita: Battle Angel 2, and they’re about to get more serious about pushing it toward production.
Directed by Rodriguez from a script by Laeta Kalogridis and producer James Cameron, Alita: Battle Angel is a manga adaptation that is set several centuries in the future. The story begins when the abandoned Alita is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido, a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg Alita to his clinic. When Alita awakens, she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the world she finds herself in. As Alita learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious past.
In a new interview, Cameron told Empire, “I appreciate the loyalty of the Alita fans. Robert Rodriguez and I have sworn a blood oath to do at least one more Alita movie. In fact, we’re thinking of an architecture that bridges to a third film, but we’ll be satisfied if we can make one more. And we’re making progress on that. Now that I have a home in Austin, Texas, about three miles from [Robert’s] place, I think we’ll probably get more serious about that as soon as I wrap the (Avatar) mix here in a few weeks.“
Are you waiting for Alita: Battle Angel 2, and are you glad to hear that James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez are making progress on the sequel? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
Subscribe to our weekly newsletter