Robert Rodriguez in talks to direct Battle Angel Alita adaptation

By Sam Barsanti | October 14, 2015 | 10:11pm

Aux Features Film

White people have been trying to turn legendary anime/manga series Akira into a big-budget blockbuster for years, but let’s not forget that there are hundreds of other legendary anime/manga adaptations also in the works. There’s Ghost In The Shell, of course, which is supposedly happening now with Scarlett Johansson in the lead, and there’s Battle Angel Alita, which James Cameron has been claiming he’ll make into a movie for as long as we can remember. Now that Cameron has a dozen Avatar sequels he needs to make, though, Deadline is reporting that he’s planning to pass Battle Angel off onto a guy who will also probably never end up making it: Robert Rodriguez. He’s still just “in talks,” but it sounds like it’s already a done deal.

The original Battle Angel Alita manga is about a female cyborg who gets rescued from a junkyard and becomes an assassin, with Deadline noting that it all represents “a young woman’s journey of self-discovery and finding love.” That’s not especially unusual as far as movies go these days, so we imagine it’ll stay pretty true to that while also making several minor cosmetic changes that will piss off fans of the original. On a related note, the movie version will apparently be titled Alita: Battle Angel instead of Battle Angel Alita. Start complaining, fans!