The legend supposedly goes that James Cameron has always been so amped on making “Alita: Battle Angel,” but was never able to because the technology to do it correctly didn’t exist. So, because we’re talking about Cameron, the filmmaker goes and invents the technology, and creates a little proof-of-concept film called “Avatar,” to show that his ‘Alita’ film is a possibility. And of course, as fate would have it, “Avatar” becomes the biggest film of all time, and ‘Alita’ got shoved in the drawer. That is, until Robert Rodriguez came along and, according to a new interview, presented Cameron with an offer the “Titanic” filmmaker couldn’t refuse.
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Speaking to the Irish Times, Rodriguez explains how he became involved with ‘Alita,’ and why Cameron felt comfortable giving his baby over to the Austin-based director. Rodriguez says that he and Cameron had been attempting to work together previously, but nothing was ever able to come to fruition. So, he took a new path for “Alita: Battle Angel.” Free work.
“Jim would rather put something in a drawer and not do it at all than do it incorrectly with the wrong director,” says Rodriguez. “I saw his original drawings and they took my breath away. The main character had porcelain arms and huge manga eyes, and I thought, Wow, he’s going full manga with this. And he trusted me with the version that was in his head, and he said, ‘If you fix the script for me, you can direct.’ So a month later I come back and say, ‘Here you go, free of charge.’ And he said, ‘All right, it’s yours.’”
But even though Cameron gave him the seal of approval, and secured a $200 million budget, Rodriguez admits that he had to change his style to accommodate the project.
“We are different,” explains the filmmaker. “My films are very targeted. I’m thinking about the gangster audience. I’m thinking about what little kids would like to see. I put jetpacks on kids. That’s just the way my imagination has always worked. I’m okay with dream logic and fantasy. Jim needs to know about the science of the jetpacks. So for this film, I had to think like I was making a James Cameron movie; I couldn’t make it like a Robert Rodriguez movie.”
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However, even in doing so, Rodriguez admits that the filming couldn’t have gone any smoother. Apparently, it helps when your producing partner happens to be a Hollywood icon that can stand up to any executive.
“It always felt like a home movie,” Rodriguez says. “I wasn’t making a movie for Fox. I was making it for Jim. And Jim and I are buddies. So if we liked it, that’s what we did. I felt like I had my own Terminator with me to protect me. It was pretty much like working on an independent film.”
“Alita: Battle Angel” is in theaters now.