Robert Rodriguez clearly made his sci-fi world builder, Alita: Battle Angel, with the idea of sequels in mind. Without spoiling anything for those who have yet to see the movie, the final shots in the film tease a major reveal of a character who has been teased throughout the entire Alita, and he’s played by a well-known, Oscar caliber actor. The stage is set for a confrontation. But will it ever happen?
It’s hard to tell, these days, what makes for a good franchise launcher. When movies like Edgar Wright’s Baby Driver are potentially getting sequels, it seems like almost anything should be worthy of a follow up, so long as you don’t totally tank. Alita: Battle Angel fans certainly are vocal on social media about wanting a sequel. So when we sat down with Alita star Rosa Salazar at San Diego Comic-Con, we asked her about potential sequel plans, and she admitted:
Look, yeah, of course. I would love to do that. Of course. But I will say this: I love this trend of being able to do something live-action, and being animated after the fact. I like having a way to completely escape my physical form in a way. I use it obviously, it’s my instrument. But I like leaving this body behind and creating someone completely new, that exists in another dimension. That is wholly her own person, her own creation. I want to do more of that, whether it be another Alita, whether it be 17 more seasons of Undone, which I hope happens. Look, if my career could just be Alita and Undone, I’d love that.
Rosa Salazar is talking about Undone, a new show that she is working on with Amazon Studios that uses cutting-edge Rotoscope animation technology to tell the story of Alma, a woman who survives a car crash, only to realize she now has an unusual relationship with time. It looks trippy and imaginative, pushing the boundaries of the types of storytelling you can do with animation.
Undone looks like this:
But Alita: Battle Angel fans really only want to know if Salazar plans to return to the story that they grew to love through Robert Rodriguez’s movie. That film drew from the beloved manga series Battle Angel Alita by Yukito Kishiro. There’s plenty of content in the source material to fuel multiple Alita movies, and Rodriguez told the ReelBlend podcast months ago that he and producer James Cameron have a story Bible that maps out where the action goes.
Also, Alita: Battle Angel made enough money to justify a sequel. True, it didn’t connect with U.S. audiences, earning $85.7 million domestically (according to BoxOfficeMojo). But the movie posted an impressive $319M outside of the States, for a global total of $404 million. And movies that earned less got sequels, so why not Alita?
But this is now up to the Movie Gods. James Cameron may be very busy on Pandora, making Avatar movies, but Salazar seems gung-ho to get back to Alita’s home world, and I’m sure Rodriguez would continue his work.
What do you guys think? Is it worth it for Fox to greenlight an Alita: Battle Angel sequel? Would it do better at the box office, or should it be content to be an international hit, with limited support in the U.S.? Vote in the poll below and let us know how you feel.
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