Four years ago, James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez’s Alita Battle Angel arrived in cinemas almost 20 years after it was first announced.
Making over $405 million worldwide, it became the latter’s highest-grossing movie, receiving praise from critics for its visual effects and action sequences.
The cyberpunk adventure, based on the manga about a female cyborg, ended on a cliffhanger.
Edward Norton made a silent cameo as Nova, the overlord of the wealthy sky city Zalem, who used Mahershala Ali’s Vector as his proxy in Iron City.
Since then fans have been hoping a sequel will eventually come about, with Cameron and Rodriguez having taken a virtual blood oath to make at least one. And now producer Jon Landau has the latest news on Alita Battle Angel 2.
Speaking with Screen Rant, Landau confirmed talks for the sequel are on-going.
He said: “I’m very proud of that film, and we were doing it concurrently with Avatar. I was down with Robert [Rodriguez] on the set doing all that, and Jim [Cameron] was involved too and saw it.
“It came on HBO one night, and Jim watched it and called me after he watched it. He said, ‘Jon, Alita was on, I just decided to watch it. It’s a good movie.’ (laughs) And it is! So, I want to be able to definitely do more in that world.”
It may have already been four years since Alita: Battle Angel was released but that shouldn’t put off Cameron.
As pointed out by the outlet, the director had seven years between the first and second Terminator movies and 13 between Avatar and its sequel last year.