Collider recently had the distinct pleasure of sitting down with James Cameron to discuss his various upcoming projects, specifically his long time desire to bring the Manga project Battle Angel to the big screens. Collider give the following description of the series:
"For those who haven’t read the Manga series, Battle Angel Alita is the story of an android found in the dump by a scientist. He takes her home, repairs her, and begins to raise her like his daughter. But, when she discovers that during his off time her father has a habit of chasing wanted criminals around and decapitating them with a giant mallet to collect the bounty, she tries to join the family business. Soon, Alita discovers that something from her forgotten past has made her good at killing – very good."
Collider: Hey, is Battle Angel still happening?
Cameron: "I’m obviously going to be pretty busy for the next five years [with Avatar 2 and 3]. And so I had to consider, do I hand this project off to another director? And then I thought, ‘No, I love it too much."
Collider: I’m not a big fan of Manga but I read all of those books. My favorite was the love story in part two and the death games in the 3rd and 4th. Which of the stories are you going to do?
Cameron: "It’s such a rich world. What I’m going to do is take the spine story and use elements from the first four books. So, the Motorball from books three and four, and parts of the story of one and two will all be in the movie."
Cool, I’m really excited for that.
Cameron: "Me too."
I like that frank style no nonsense interview, It kind of sounds like they were talking from afar, almost shouting. Cameron has mentioned the following before in relation to Battle Angel:
"We’re not that far down the line. We have a very good script and we’ve done a lot of production design. We’ve done about a year of production design and we’ve put together an art reel that shows the arc of the film."
"Battle Angel, I think, is a science fiction movie that begs the question ‘What does it mean to be human?’ It takes place in a future world, a world that has cyborgs, but are you human if you have a mind, if you have a heart, if you have a soul? It’s a journey of a young girl who tries to discover herself and what she learns upon that journey… I just love the character. Maybe it’s from having daughters. I have three daughters, and thinking about what it’s like, the main character is this little girl that everybody kind of ignores. She’s got such a heroic heart on the inside, I’ve always loved that character"
Props to /Film for pulling the quotes.
