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Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Battle Angel Alita - Live-Action Movie

MTV Splash Page is quoting producer Jon Landau to the effect that James Cameron's Battle Angel adaptation is now penciled in after Avatar 2.

Remember the good old days of 2005? MySpace was taking over the Internet, Mel Gibson was unleashing R-rated tirades that weren’t in any film script — and some long-forgotten hermit named James Cameron was making public appearances, claiming he had two boundary-breaking projects on the horizon.

Well, as it turns out, he was right — and choosing “Avatar” as the first of the two films to make seems pretty damn brilliant in retrospect. But what about the other movie?

“'Avatar' was something Jim had written before, but we were about to embark on a film called ‘Battle Angel: Alita,’ and then we looked at ourselves and said ‘Wait a second, ‘Avatar’ is something that Jim always referred to as his magnum opus, and we can do it now,’” remembered the filmmaker’s producing partner, Jon Landau. “But [‘Battle Angel’] is something that Jim is very, very passionate about. It was actually brought to our attention by another filmmaker, Guillermo del Toro; Guillermo saw those things in the property that he thought would really relate to Jim, and Jim responded to it immediately.”

Although Landau was quick to point out that Cameron plans to shoot an “Avatar” sequel first, he re-affirmed the filmmaker’s intentions to adapt Yukito Kishiro’s manga classic after that.

“We had a wonderful writer who came in and collaborated with Jim, Laeta Kalogridis, who worked on it; Laeta brought to our attention that there was much more to this world of Battle Angel than we ever knew,” explained Landau. “We were familiar with the anime that had been produced, we were familiar with one of the main books. But she opened us up to the other nine books that exist, and how rich that world is.”

In a way, it was this eye-opening that caused Cameron to choose “Avatar” first.

“We really wanted to take our time in developing a large arc-ing story that really encompasses the whole world,” remembered Landau. “We were very close to doing that movie before we did ‘Avatar,’ and I think you’ll see that resurface. That’s a story in our minds about: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to fall in love? Are you human if you have a heart? Are you human if you have a mind? Or are you human if you just have a body? It’s a journey of self-discovery for a young girl.”

The general consensus over the past few years is that Cameron and co. will drop the name of their main character from the title and simply call the film “Battle Angel.” But according to Landau, that will definitely not be the movie’s name — and for good reason.

“I’m telling people that we have to call it ‘Alita: Battle Angel,’ because Jim only does T&A movies,” grinned Landau, listing the examples. “’Titanic,’ ‘Aliens,’ ‘Terminator,’ ‘Abyss,’ ‘True Lies,’ ‘Avatar.’”

“So, we can’t call it ‘Battle Angel’,” he insisted. “We have to call it ‘Alita: Battle Angel.’”

He also said:
"If people are familiar with the series at all, there's something they call Motorball," Landau said of the one aspect of Alita that he's most eager to see Cameron capture. "That is something that Jim has always been dynamically excited about. Its racing on a super track, with characters that are built and created in the cyborg world to race against each other in an arena."

"Its almost like a gladiator match meets an Indy 500 race," Landau added. "[Their mode of battle] depends on who they are. It depends how they've been modified as cyborgs; they're not in cars and its their physical being that is out there. Some of them are on roller skates and Alita participates in this, and she's on roller blades, while other people might have different devices. Its a wonderful, rich world to design and develop."

1 comment:

  1. Actually, in a recent interview Cameron said "Well.... MAYBE, well be doing Battle Angel". This is a bad sign because Cameron has always said he wanted to do the project but now its a "maybe" well do it. Personally I dont think we will see it at all. Itll go the way of Camerons Spiderman project. It was obvious that it would go to the backburner after the sucess of Avatar and the reason is because the studios want the money theyll make off of a sure thing and Avatar has turned out to be a sure thing. Before any film actually comes out, there is always hesitation and anticipation, on the part of a studio. But especially so, when the film is part of a planned franchise, and the imminent release is the first installment of an as yet unproven new franchise or intelle ctual property. Avatar has proved itself now, hence Avatar 2 whether its good bad or shite is guaranteed to make even more money than the first one, so the studio will rush it straight into production as soon as they can and they certainly wont drop it for an unproved ip like Battle Angel Alita when they are onto a sure fire winner with Avatar. They would usually be uncertain about a whole lot of factors about Battle Angel, despite how well Cameron attempts to re-assure them how great the film will be, until it actually comes out and does well or does not do well, whereas they wont want to pass up on a surefire thing like Avatar 2. Right or wrong, this is how it is in Hollywood, where money is king, and unfortunately, Cameron, as powerful as he is, he isnt the main man and he cant guarantee that anything gets made because he doesnt really have a say in those matters. Just because he wants to make the film doesnt mean hell get to make it. Of course its also true that because of the sucess of Avatar the studio may be more willing to take a chance on Battle Angel which of course is a good thing but lets hope that Camerons interest in bringing the material to the big screen sustains for at least another few years. Whos to say that by the time he gets finished doing Avatar 2 or three that maybe the guy will want to move on to something fresher, after all its already been fourteen years. How far ahead can the guy plan? Its some commitment to make! The only thing that can be done is to keep your fingers crossed and hope that it does eventually get made, just dont hold your breath.

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