After 20 years of development, Alita: Battle Angel is finally ready to hit the big screen, but could the movie have been more successful if James Cameron directed as originally planned instead of Avatar? Alita is based on the cult manga Gunnm by Yukito Kishiro, and tells the story of a female cyborg found in the scrap heap of a post-apocalyptic world. She is rebuilt by a kindly doctor but as her memory starts to return, she discovers more about her dark past. Cameron was introduced to Battle Angel by friend Guillermo del Toro and quickly fell in love with it, from the fleshed out, futuristic world of Iron City to the title character herself.
Cameron announced plans to adapt Alita: Battle Angel in the early-2000s, but while it would be mentioned in passing over the years, his focus on other projects saw it gradually slip into development hell. The Avatar sequels now mean Cameron’s directorial plate will be full until at least 2025, so it seemed Alita would never get made. Luckily for fans, Robert Rodriguez asked about the status of the project, giving Cameron the idea to pass the adaptation over to him. Rodriguez took the original script – and a reported 600 pages of notes – and condensed it into a shootable screenplay.
Fans of James Cameron will know Alita and Avatar are projects that were developed side by side, and for a long time, it was neck and neck between which one Cameron would opt for. Avatar ultimately won that race, but while Alita still has James Cameron’s fingerprints over it, it’s a Robert Rodriguez movie at the end of the day. Let’s take a look back at the long development process on Alita: Battle Angel and imagine how it may have turned out had James Cameron directed it.
- This Page: James Cameron Almost Made Alita Instead Of Avatar Page 2: What If Cameron Chose Alita Instead Of Avatar?
Avatar And Alita Were Born At The Same Time
James Cameron has never been a hired gun or a journeyman as a filmmaker; when he develops a project, he’s deeply involved in all of it, from the writing to the production design. He’s also something of a cinematic engineer, which is why he tends to push new advancements in technology whenever he’s making a new movie, be it the CGI water tendril in The Abyss or the 3D seen in Avatar. One challenge that fascinated him was creating photorealistic CG characters, so when he first sat down to pen Avatar in 1994, that was one milestone he wanted to reach.
Avatar was originally going to be the first movie Cameron tackled after the juggernaut that was Titanic, with a release date set for 1999. The filmmaker later decided against this, feeling the technology hadn’t caught up with his vision yet. He also started developing Alita: Battle Angel around 1999 and later confirmed plans to make a movie out of it. Just like Avatar, plans for Alita would change regularly, with Cameron once planning to adapt it around the time he was working on the thematically similar TV series Dark Angel, starring Jessica Alba. Both Alita and Avatar would occasionally blip on the radar screens of genre fans during the early 2000s only to go quiet again for long periods.
Both projects also share a lot of themes regularly found in Cameron’s work, from a strong female lead, a concern with ecology, a cyberpunk aesthetic (more so in Alita’s case) and even a star-crossed love story. When Cameron finally settled on Avatar as his next movie, there were initial plans to develop Alita around the same time since they would have shared similar technology. Again, Cameron’s focus on finishing Avatar and then getting distracted on other projects in the aftermath left Alita sitting on his “To Do” pile.
Alita 2019 Is What James Cameron Always Planned To Make
It should be noted Alita: Battle Angel is still the story Cameron set out to tell all those years ago. The movie is a faithful adaption of the first two volumes of the manga and the OVA animes, with the futuristic sport Motorball imported from later volumes. That’s not to say Cameron acted as ghost director on the movie though because once he handed it over, it became Robert Rodriguez project. Rodriguez’s goofy sense of humor and kinetic action style are plain to see in the finished product, alongside his eye for cool visuals.
Where Cameron’s influence is very visible is in the tech that went into making Alita, and the amount of world building. Iron City feels like a real, tangible place with a backstory that goes largely unspoken. The subtext of Alita being a wide-eyed innocent is made all too clear with the character’s big, manga-inspired eyes, with the same performance capture tech that went into Avatar being put to work again. The character herself shares a lineage with Sarah Connor, Ellen Ripley or even Titanic’s Rose, who are all characters who have to overcome various fears and traumas to embrace their destiny.
Cameron’s Alita would have been different, sure, but the fundamental building blocks remain in the finished product, which make it interesting that, while Avatar is still the biggest movie of all time, Battle Angel is cruising to be a box office bomb.
Why James Cameron Chose Avatar Over Alita
The creation of CGI characters like Gollum in The Lord Of The Rings and the title character in Peter Jackson’s King Kong convinced Cameron in 2005 the time was right to develop Avatar. After completing tests with 3D cameras, Cameron opted for the more personal Avatar over Alita but planned to dive right into Battle Angel shortly afterwards using the same advancements. Of course, making Avatar was an all-consuming process, with the filmmaker understandably taking another break from directing in the aftermath. It didn’t hurt that Avatar became the highest-grossing movie of all time upon release and Cameron later confirmed his intention to develop a trilogy.
Developing the Avatar sequels would itself become a full-time job, and the plan for two sequels ballooned into four. The writing process took so long Avatar 2’s originally announced release date was pushed back from 2018 to 2020. The sequels are being developed as standalone stories that will be complete in themselves, but while a green light for Avatar 4 & 5 is dependent on the success of the first two sequels, it became clear Cameron wouldn’t be available to make Alita for a long time to come. That’s when the project was handed to Rodriguez, with Cameron acting as producer.
Page 2 of 2: What If Cameron Chose Alita Instead Of Avatar?
Would Alita Have Been A Success With James Cameron Directing?
The jury is still out on how Alita: Battle Angel will perform. Avatar itself had some dire predictions prior to release, with cynics dubbing it Dances With Smurfs and anticipating a huge bomb. Alita suffered a similar response based on early trailers, especially in regards to the big eyes on the title character. Live-action adaptations of manga or anime tend to be a risky prospect at the best of times; they rarely receive a warm critical response and the genre is littered with financial duds like Dragonball: Evolution and Ghost In The Shell.
These doubts could be pushed aside with Cameron. Robert Rodriguez has never been in charge of a huge, tentpole blockbuster, so his name doesn’t hold much clout with general audiences. In contrast, had James Cameron directed it, the poster alone could boost it was from the director of Avatar and Titanic, the top two highest grossing movies ever. It doesn’t hurt to have a filmography with The Terminator and Aliens on it either, and his return after a decade’s absence would be part of the promotional campaign. Again, Alita definitely has his stamp all over it but it’s more of a merging of voices than a pure Cameron experience.
Had the movie come right after Avatar, it definitely would have benefitted from the same wave that lifted that movie to untold riches. Coming a decade later has lessened its timeliness, and it feels like the marketing campaign is having a tough time conveying the core appeal of Alita: Battle Angel. It’s focusing on the visuals and action, while the movie itself works for the reason that drew Cameron to it 20 years ago - the character of Alita herself. It’s an action movie with a surprising amount of heart and is mainly powered by Roza Salazar’s winning central performance.
Was The Avatar Experiment Worth It?
In purely financial terms, Cameron made the right call with Avatar. It struck the zeitgeist at the right moment to gross over $2 billion worldwide. The movie’s legacy is a little more complex, however. Its success led to a wave of substandard blockbusters using 3D as a flimsy excuse to charge more for tickets, with Avatar star Sam Worthington’s Clash Of The Titans being the most infamous example. There’s also the fact that in spite of the movie’s tremendous success, it hasn’t really lingered with audiences in the same way other Cameron creations have like The Terminator or Titanic. That said, there were naysayers predicting doom for Avatar before it came out, so it would be a mistake to doubt Cameron before Avatar 2 is even released. The sequels could be the thing that cement Avatar as a cultural phenomenon – or underline why it never will be.
Which leads back to the question of what would have happened had James Cameron selected Alita: Battle Angel over Avatar back in 2009? For one, it may not have been as big a success since it came from pre-existing material and the audience probably would have been less accepting of Alita’s manga eyes on a more human looking character. The cyberpunk style and visuals are also less colorful and inviting as that of Avatar’s Pandora either.
Alita would have been a great fit for Cameron’s sensibilities and while it’s fun to imagine how his take would have turned out, or fan cast a 2009 version – Jessica Alba as Alita, Bill Paxton as Ido? - he was right to choose Avatar. Whether Alita: Battle Angel will blossom into a franchise and allow him to helm a sequel one day, is another question.
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- Battle Angel Alita Release Date: 2019-02-14 Avatar 2 Release Date: 2022-12-16 Avatar 3 Release Date: 2024-12-20 Avatar 4 Release Date: 2026-12-18 Avatar 5 Release Date: 2028-12-22
