Alita: could this James Cameron pet project be Hollywood’s breakthrough manga movie?
- Manga adaptation stars Maze Runner actress Rosa Salazar, Christoph Waltz, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connolly, Eiza Gonzalez and Keean Johnson
- The story of a cyborg who awakens with no memory in a dystopian world and discovers her fighting powers has universal themes
The manga movie Alita: Battle Angel has been 20 years in the making, and producer Jon Landau thinks it will finally represent the breakthrough success in Hollywood for a genre which has proved problematic.
“I think this is definitely the breakthrough one because of the story that Kishiro wrote,” said Landau, referring to Japanese author Yukito Kishiro, who wrote the graphic novels, or manga, upon which the movie is based.
“You know, other mangas that have not worked have been very Asian-centric in their world, and in their stories,” Landau said. “And Kishiro wrote a melting-pot world. He didn’t write a central character that was Asian. He wrote universal themes of discovery, of self-awareness, for these characters. And that’s what’s relatable to people across the globe.”
The film has an estimated budget of US$200 million and when it opens in February, Twentieth Century Fox will be hoping for a much better reception than Paramount’s 2017 flop Ghost in the Shell .
That manga movie didn’t seem to connect with audiences, grossing just US$41 million in the United States and US$170 million worldwide, with some critics accusing it of “whitewashing” after Scarlett Johansson was cast in the lead role.
Alita tells the story of cyborg Alita (Rosa Salazar), who awakens without memory in a dystopian world where she’s taken in by a compassionate father figure, Dr Dyson Ido (Christoph Waltz). As she learns to navigate her new world, she begins to discover her latent fighting powers and develops feelings for street-smart Hugo (Keean Johnson).