Hollywood is an industry predicated on empty and often broken promises, but when James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez swore a blood oath guaranteeing that an Alita: Battle Angel sequel as going to happen, it was a decent enough confirmation that the two filmmaking titans were going to give it their all.
While the blockbuster sci-fi only just managed to squeak past $400 million at the global box office to render the profit margins razor-thin given the eye-watering budget said to be almost $200 million, fans immediately took the manga adaptation to their hearts once it had left theaters, to the extent it now ranks as a certifiable cult favorite.
Of course, we wouldn’t be in the position of campaigns and petitions even needing to exist in the first place had more of them shown up during Alita‘s theatrical run and paid for a ticket to see it on the big screen, but at least producer Jon Landau sounds confident the success of Cameron’s all-conquering Avatar franchise bodes well for the future of Battle Angel, as he revealed in an interview with ScreenRant.
“We’re working on it. 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.”
That’s about as vague as we’ve come to expect, but with Cameron actually picking up some pace in regards to the Avatar sequels following the decade and a half gap between the first and second installments, there might be a chance he’ll find some room in his schedule for an Alita 2 sooner rather than later.
