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Alita: Battle Angel is a 2019 American cyberpunk action film based on Yukito Kishiro's manga series Gunnm (or Battle Angel Alita in English). It was directed by Robert Rodriguez, produced by James Cameron and Jon Landau, and written by Cameron and Laeta Kalogridis. Rosa Salazar stars through motion-capture animation as Alita, a cyborg who awakens in a new body without memory of her past and sets out to uncover her destiny. Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley and Keean Johnson play supporting roles.
Announced in 2003, production was repeatedly delayed due to Cameron's work on Avatar (2009) and its sequels. After years of development hell, Rodriguez was announced as Alita's director in April 2016, with Salazar cast as the lead the following month. Principal photography began in October 2016 in Austin, Texas, mostly at Rodriguez's Troublemaker Studios, and lasted until February 2017.
Alita: Battle Angel had its world premiere at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on January 31, 2019, and was released in the United States on February 14, 2019, by 20th Century Fox. It is the first film produced by Lightstorm Entertainment since Avatar, and the last film released by 20th Century Fox before the acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney. The film grossed over $405 million worldwide, making it Rodriguez's highest-grossing film, and received mixed reviews from critics, with praise for its action sequences, visual effects, and Salazar's performance, while the screenplay was criticized. A sequel is in development.
In the year 2563, 300 years after Earth was devastated by a catastrophic war known as "The Fall", scientist Dr. Dyson Ido discovers a disembodied female cyborg with an intact human brain while scavenging for parts in the massive scrapyard of Iron City. Ido attaches a new cyborg body to the brain and names her "Alita" after his late daughter. Alita wakes with no memory of her past and quickly befriends Hugo, a young man who dreams of moving to the wealthy sky city of Zalem. She also meets Dr. Chiren, Ido's estranged ex-wife. Hugo later introduces Alita to Motorball, a Rollerball-like racing sport played by cyborg gladiators. Secretly, Hugo robs cyborgs of their parts for Vector, owner of the Motorball tournament and the 'de facto' ruler of the Factory, Iron City's governing authority.
Frustrated, Alita registers herself as a Hunter-Warrior. At the Kansas Bar, she and Hugo are unable to recruit other Hunter-Warriors to help her take down Grewishka. Zapan, a cyborg Hunter-Warrior bully, provokes Alita and she severely beats him in a fight, triggering a chaotic bar brawl until Ido arrives to intervene. Suddenly, an upgraded Grewishka appears and challenges Alita to a duel, revealing that he has been sent by Zalem's technocrat overlord, Nova, to destroy her. Despite her combat skills, Alita's body is damaged by Grewishka, before Ido, Hugo, and Hunter-Warrior dogmaster McTeague arrive and force Grewishka to retreat. Ido apologizes and transplants Alita into the Berserker body.
Having fallen in love with Hugo, Alita enters a Motorball tryout race for the prize money to send Hugo to Zalem. Hugo's relationship with Alita leads him to decide to quit his criminal job. He confronts his partner Tanji, but Zapan appears, kills Tanji and frames Hugo for the murder of another cyborg. Hugo narrowly escapes and calls Alita for help; she abandons the race and finds him just as Zapan does. Zapan mortally wounds Hugo. Dr. Chiren, having changed her mind about working for Vector, offers to help save Hugo by attaching his severed head to Alita's life support system. When Zapan sees through the trick and attempts to stop Alita, she seizes his prized Damascus blade and disfigures him.
Ido transplants Hugo's head onto a cyborg body and tells Alita that Vector's offer to help Hugo reach Zalem was a lie; as an exiled citizen of Zalem, Ido is certain that citizens of Iron City cannot enter Zalem without becoming a Motorball champion. Alita storms the Factory and confronts Vector, who reveals that Chiren has been harvested for her organs. Vector summons Grewishka, but Alita's new nanotech body allows her to easily destroy him. She forces Nova to speak to her through Vector. When Nova threatens to harm her friends, Alita fatally impales Vector.
Ido contacts Alita to tell her that Hugo has fled to climb a cargo tube towards Zalem. Alita catches up to him and pleads with him to return with her. He eventually agrees, but a serrated defense ring dropped by Nova shreds his body and throws him off the tube. Alita catches him but cannot pull him up. Hugo thanks Alita for saving him before falling to his death.
Months later, Alita is a rising superstar in the Motorball tournament. Cheered on by the crowd, she swears revenge by pointing her plasma-charged sword toward Zalem, where Nova watches from above, smirking.
Battle Angel Alita, an early-1990s Japanese cyberpunk manga series written by Yukito Kishiro, was originally brought to James Cameron's attention by filmmaker Guillermo del Toro, and Cameron immediately became enamored with the concept.[11][12][13][14][15] The domain name "battleangelalita.com" was registered to James Cameron by 20th Century Fox around June 2000.[16] Fox also registered the "battleangelmovie.com" domain.[17] In April 2003, it was reported by Moviehole that Cameron had confirmed he would direct a Battle Angel film.[18] Cameron confirmed that a script for the film was in production during an interview on the Tokudane! program on Fuji TV on May 4, 2003.[19] It was originally scheduled to be his next production after the TV series Dark Angel,[20] which was influenced by Battle Angel Alita.[21] It was later scheduled to be his next film after Aliens of the Deep in January 2005.[22]
In June 2005, The Hollywood Reporter claimed that the film was being delayed while Cameron developed a film known as Project 880,[23] which would later be renamed Avatar.[24] Entertainment Weekly ran an interview in February 2006 in which Cameron stated that his deal with 20th Century Fox was that he produce both films.[25] The article also claimed that Battle Angel was slated to be released in September 2009.[25] In June 2006, Cameron commented that Battle Angel was the second of two planned film trilogies he was developing, with the first being Avatar.[26] In May 2008, Cameron indicated he would be working on a film titled The Dive, a biography of freedivers Francisco Ferreras and Audrey Mestre,[27] thus delaying the film again. That July, at the San Diego Comic-Con International, he reiterated that he was still committed to making the film.[28] In December 2009, Cameron commented during an interview with MTV News that a script for Battle Angel had been completed.[29]
In February 2010, producer Jon Landau commented that he was trying to convince Cameron to change the title from the manga to Alita: Battle Angel for the film.[11] Cameron later explained the reason for rearranging the film title from the initial source material, was to allow the possibilities of sequel titles, "It's Alita, colon, Battle Angel. Because the next one will be "Alita: Fallen Angel" and then Alita... you know "Avenging Angel" and then Alita whatever. I mean, that's assuming we make some money".[30] Landau also revealed that screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis had worked on writing the film.[11] In August 2010, Cameron stated that the film was "still on [his] radar", but he did not know when he would make it.[24] However, that October, he confirmed that his next films would be two Avatar sequels instead of Battle Angel.[31] He still stated that he did not intend to abandon the film, stating that he loved the project too much to hand it off to another director,[12] but reiterated in June 2011 that it would not be produced until the two Avatar sequels were completed,[32] stating that "Battle Angel is not going to happen for a few years".[33] According to Cameron, his reason for producing Avatar first is because he believes that the film can raise public awareness of the need for environmental protection.[34]
With James Cameron as potential director, the film was to be produced with the same mix of live-action and computer-generated imagery that Cameron used in Avatar.[29] Specifically, Cameron intended to render the main character, Alita, completely in CGI.[22] Cameron had stated that he would make use of technologies developed for Avatar to produce the film, such as the Fusion Camera System, Facial motion capture, and the Simulcam.[40] In May 2006, Variety reported that Cameron had spent the past ten months developing technology to produce the film.[41]
In October 2018, Mark Goerner, a digital artist who had worked on the film for a year and a half, commented that pre-production work on the film was mostly finished.[42] In a February 2019 interview, Cameron revealed that he set the floating city of Zalem in Panama,[43] specifically Panama City.[44] He explained that the city Zalem is not floating, but hanging from a space elevator, which would only work physically near the equator. As a result of the new location, Iron City was designed with Spanish signage and Latin American architecture.[43][45]
An April 2016 article in The Hollywood Reporter reported that Maika Monroe, Rosa Salazar, and Zendaya were among the final actresses being considered to take the role of Alita in the film, with a decision due within a few weeks.[38] The article reported that Zendaya's former Shake It Up co-star Bella Thorne had also auditioned for the role.[38] Near the end of May 2016, Collider reported that Salazar had been chosen.[46] In August 2016, it was reported that Christoph Waltz was in negotiations to play Dr. Dyson Ido,[47] the equivalent of Daisuke Ido from the original manga.[48] On September 14, 2016, it was announced that Jackie Earle Haley had been cast as a cyborg villain.[49] On September 21, 2016, Variety reported that Ed Skrein was in talks for a role in the film;[50] The Hollywood Reporter later confirmed that he had been cast as the antagonist Zapan.[51]
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