James Cameron’s long journey (15 years) to realize Battle Angel Alita or Gunnm for the big screen is apparently happening. There’s also rumours of Robert Rodriguez (Machete, Desperado, Spy Kids) is in negotiations to direct the adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s manga with production by James Cameron and Jon Landau under Lightstorm Entertainment.

Reportedly James Cameron plans to start the project in 2017 after Avatar 3 entered post-production and mentions how ideas of trans-humanism which is a central plot of the manga continues to haunt him.

Hollywood’s most celebrated director said “Robert and I have been looking for a film to do together for years, so I was pumped when he said he wanted to do Battle Angel. He’s very collaborative and we’re already like two kids building a go-kart, just having fun riffing creatively and technically. This project is near and dear to me, and there’s nobody I trust more than Robert, with his technical virtuosity and rebel style, to take over the directing reins. We’re looking forward to learning a lot from each other while we make a kick-ass epic.

Death stare over 9000
Death stare over 9000

Whereas Rodriguez has this to say, “Battle Angel is an incredibly rich and vibrant epic in the tradition of Jim Cameron’s spectacular, character-driven films. Getting to work from Jim’s terrific and visionary script while learning the cutting edge techniques he’s pioneered is a master class in filmmaking. It’s an honor to explore the world ofAlita along with Jim and Jon, whose films have impacted me for decades.”

Laeta Kalogordis (Shutter Island, Terminator Genisys) wrote the script of Battle Angel Alita but it is unclear if there is anymore development on it. As the manga fans know, the story focuses on self-discovery, trans-humanism, the search of love and brutal cyborg-on-cyborg martial arts duels. Fans might prefer James Cameron himself to do the directing but with the busy scheduling of Avatar project makes it impossible for him to do so. Perhaps this is next best thing for the fans?

Now we are wondering if Hollywood can live up to that vision.