Conversation at the Oscars last night centered on three films: Sam Mendes’ 1917, Todd Phillips’ Joker and Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite. All three walked away with gongs, with Parasite the surprise big winner after picking up Best Picture, Best Director, Best International Picture and Best Original Screenplay. But another 2019 movie that earned no nominations also made some headlines: Alita: Battle Angel.
The kick-ass science fiction action film proved to be something of a sleeper hit last year and has been building a sizeable and passionate fanbase now that it’s available to view at home. But despite it ending on something of a cliffhanger, there are currently no plans for a sequel. Alita fans have been campaigning for this for some time now though and to keep the film in the industry’s mind, they hired a plane to fly over the Academy Awards trailing a banner that read: “#ALITASEQUEL #ALITAARMY.”
DAMN. That is some passion for Alita. #AlitaSequel #OSCARS pic.twitter.com/BLUywBrlvq
— Jessica Chobot (@JessicaChobot) February 10, 2020
Alita: Battle Angel was released by 20th Century Fox, so post-merger, the fans need to convince Disney to get things moving forward on the project. They’ll face a pretty difficult struggle, though. Alita wasn’t a flop, but wasn’t hugely profitable, either (though a large portion of its budget resulted from its extensive development time over about 15 years). But with the technology now in place and no huge names needing a paycheque, a sequel should be a much safer proposition.
The cast and crew behind the movie are all supportive of the campaign, too. Producer Jon Landau has encouraged fans to keep the pressure on the studio and star Rose Salazar has said that she’d return to the character in a heartbeat, stating:
“I would play Alita ‘til my last breath. I would, and thanks to the performance capture technology, I probably could.”
So, come on Disney, why not throw a little of that Star Wars and Marvel money towards an Alita: Battle Angel sequel? I mean, if you need content to fill out Disney Plus, it seems like a follow-up would pick you up a number of very happy new subscribers.
