It has been a few years since Alita: Battle Angel was released, but talks of a sequel are still in discussion between producers James Cameron and Landau with director Robert Rodriguez. Though updates on a potential sequel have been few, both Landau and Rodriguez gave new hope to the project in recent interviews.
In an interview with Screen Rant, Landau spoke about the film and revealed he and Cameron have been speaking with Rodriguez as well as Rosa Salazar, who played Alita in the first film. He also said how the new technology and improvements in motion capture for the Avatar sequels could be applied to Alita: Battle Angel 2.
“We’re working on it,” Landau told the outlet. “I think what we’ve learned from Avatar is how much more facial nuance and subtlety that we can get into characters that we want to be emotional and emote that are humanoid. Alita would not have been possible but for what we did on Avatar. Avatar: Way of Water would not be what it is but what we did for Alita. And now let’s put that back and give it back to Alita. We’re talking to Robert and talking to Rosa and all is good.”
In a separate interview for Total Film and GamesRadar+, Rodriguez was asked to follow up on Landau’s comments and confirmed discussions have taken place, though the greenlight has not been given to start development on Alita: Battle Angel 2 and it may still be a while before it is officially given as Cameron and Landau are hard at work on Avatar 3, which will be released in 2024, and its two sequels.
“Yeah, we have been talking about it, so we would love to make one,” Rodriguez said. “We haven’t set it for sure yet, but we’re definitely hoping to and talking about it a lot. They’re slammed with all the Avatar stuff, but they’ve definitely been engaging in it.”
Alita: Battle Angel was based on Yukito Kishiro’s manga series Battle Angel Alita from a screenplay written by Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. It starred Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Keean Johnson, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connelly, Ed Skrein and Jackie Earle Haley. Edward Norton also made a cameo appearance as the series’ main antagonist as set up for a sequel.
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