You won't be getting an Alita: Battle Angel movie for Christmas, as it's moving to February...
It's been a long time coming, with Alita: Battle Angel moving around on James Cameron's to-do list for what feels like decades, but finally, the sci-fi action flick is coming to cinemas courtesy of director Robert Rodriguez... just a little later than planned. The movie has now shifted to a 14th February release date in the US, and we're now waiting on confirmation of the new UK date.
Battle Angel hails from Japan, where the successful manga spawned a 90s anime adaptation. It tells the story of a cyborg heroine, Gally, who's rescued from a scrapheap by a kindly scientist. A confused innocent in a violent cyberpunk world, Battle Angel follows the athletic heroine as she searches for the secret of her own past.
Cameron's on board as a producer, and that certainly shows in the trailers for the forthcoming film. Gally's brought to the screen using cutting-edge CGI (it's Rosa Salazar under all that digital makeup), and those eyes certainly draw comparisons with the blue cat people of Cameron's Avatar. It's this, we suspect, that will draw as much debate from anime and manga fans as anything else in this glossy, $200m epic.
Based upon the graphic novel ("Manga") series "GUNNM" by Yukito Kishiro - From visionary filmmakers James Cameron (AVATAR) and Robert Rodriguez (SIN CITY), comes ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, an epic adventure of hope and empowerment. When Alita (Rosa Salazar) awakens with no memory of who she is in a future world she does not recognize, she is taken in by Ido (Christoph Waltz), a compassionate doctor who realizes that somewhere in this abandoned cyborg shell is the heart and soul of a young woman with an extraordinary past. As Alita learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious history while her street-smart new friend Hugo (Keean Johnson) offers instead to help trigger her memories. But it is only when the deadly and corrupt forces that run the city come after Alita that she discovers a clue to her past - she has unique fighting abilities that those in power will stop at nothing to control. If she can stay out of their grasp, she could be the key to saving her friends, her family and the world she's grown to love.