The Battle Angel Movie Is Finally Moving Forward with an Official Director Announcement

Is this finally happening? James Cameron has been trying to get a Battle Angel Alita movie off of the ground for over half a decade already, and now, it looks like things are moving forward in a big way.

According to a statement from Cameron released to Deadline, he’s found a director for the project, and it’s Robert freakin’ Rodriguez. Nice.

Wait, back up, what’s Battle Angel?

Battle Angel Alita, known as Gunnm in Japan, is a manga series set in a post-apocalyptic future of the former United States. It centers around a cybog named Alita who is left for dead in a garbage dump. She’s rescued and repaired by a cybernetics doctor, but finds that she can only remember her training in a legendary lost martial art known as Panzer Kunst.

Setting-wise, the series takes place in a city known as Scrapyard, built in the shadow of another city called Tiphares, which is suspended in the air by an orbital ring. Scrapyard basically exists to send supplies up to Tiphares, and the population is kept in check by mercenaries called Hunter-Warriors and robots.

The manga has been ongoing since the early 90s, and has so far been adapted into a short anime miniseries, and a video game.

What do we know about the Cameron/Rodriguez adaptation?

Right now, it looks like the movie will be going with the title of, Alita: Battle Angel. It will be live-action, using some of the 3D/CGI technology Cameron developed for Avatar.

In terms of the story, the current plan is to adapt material from the first four volumes of the manga.

Aside from that, we don’t know much, but Cameron has previously stated that the film is a longways off (2017 at the very earliest), so there’s plenty of time for it to develop.