Robert Rodriguez, the director of Alita: Battle Angel, hasn’t given up hope on an Alita sequel just yet. In an interview with The Nerdy Basement, Rodriguez joked that he was hoping his recent work on the Star Wars spin-offs The Mandalorian and Book of Boba Fett would earn him brownie points with Disney – the studio that now owns the action movie’s big-screen rights.
“I’m hoping I’m earning some points by doing so much for Disney, ’cause they own it now [after buying Fox], and that’s why we weren’t able to jump right into the sequel, because of that whole thing,” Rodriguez said. “I’m trying to see what happens with [Book of] Boba Fett. I think that’s going to knock people’s socks off, so when that happens, I will go in and say: ‘OK, I’ve been here for a while, let’s figure out how we can do Alita, whether it’s for streaming or theatrical because it’s such a great property, people love it. I love it, and Jim [Cameron, co-producer] loves it.'”
Rodriguez isn’t wrong. People genuinely do love Alita. While the science fiction movie opened to mediocre reviews from critics and reportedly failed to break even at the box office, its fans have been very vocal in demanding a sequel. Like the #restorethesnyderverse crew before them, they’ve attempted to use social media to pressure Disney into greenlighting a sequel, although their efforts haven’t been successful so far.
That said, Rodriguez did admit that he and Cameron were plotting something. “We just talked about it recently again, about how we can do this, what’s the best way to approach it,” he said. “I think it’ll be me going in there with him to talk about it because I’m doing a lot of stuff for [Disney] now.”
While we’d like to see what Cameron and Rodriguez could come up with for an Alita sequel, we’re not hopeful it’ll happen. Cameron’s got his hands full with four (four James?) Avatar sequels that he’s directing for Disney, which will keep him busy for the next several years.
Rodriguez, meanwhile, is working as an executive producer on the new Boba Fett spin-off. And if we had to choose between more Boba action and Alita, I’m sorry, but the guy wearing a bucket on his head and a jetpack on his back wins every time.