Up until he boarded Fox’s Alita: Battle Angel, Robert Rodriguez had never been regarded as a hired gun that a major studio would draft in to give a mega-budget blockbuster a safe pair of hands behind the camera. The filmmaker had always remained independent, producing and financing the majority of his own output, but the opportunity to play in a sci-fi sandbox with James Cameron offering advice at every turn was too good to pass up.
Alita didn’t flop at the box office by any means, but a haul of $404 million was less than what the money men were expecting, especially when the sprawling epic cost $170 million plus marketing and promotion. Of course, fans took it to their hearts almost instantly, and the campaign to will a sequel into existence has been rumbling along ever since.
Rodriguez has fairly ingratiated himself with Disney by helming an action-packed episode of The Mandalorian, which in turn saw him named as one of the executive producers and directors of spinoff series The Book of Boba Fett. In a new interview, he admitted his hopes that his Star Wars gig may eventually yield that second Alita.
“I’m hoping I’m earning some points by doing so much for Disney, because they own it now, and that’s why we weren’t able to jump right into the sequel, because of that whole thing. But now they are starting to release some of the Fox stuff.”
The Desperado and From Dusk till Dawn director has outlined his hopes in the past that the Mouse House could eventually circle back around to Alita: Battle Angel, and he’s right in saying that the company hasn’t abandoned former Fox properties. Free Guy was a big hit for 20th Century Studios, and The King’s Man is coming in December, so it isn’t game over quite yet.