Alita: Battle Angel - James Cameron's Sequels May Cover These 3 Story Arcs
While you might think of movies like "Avatar," "Titanic," and "Terminator" when the topic of James Cameron films comes up, the filmmaker also had a hand in bringing "Alita: Battle Angel" to the big screen. The famed director worked as both a writer and a producer on the anime/manga adaptation, and now it looks like we may finally be seeing more of the franchise.
Cameron confirmed that he is working on more "Alita: Battle Angel" films in a recent chat with Forbes, and fans of the 2019 film will no doubt be overjoyed at the news. This is because the film wraps up with a cliffhanger ending in which the titular cyborg (Rosa Salazar) challenges Nova (Edward Norton), a shadowy presence behind much of the film's events.
"Alita: Battle Angel" covered the first three arcs of the manga series while also introducing elements from the fourth arc. Since the third arc focuses on Motorball and the film ended with Alita's victory in another Motorball match, it would make sense that the sequel will finish out this section of the story before moving on to the next arcs.
The sequel will likely cover two or three arcs of the manga
As mentioned above, the first film covered the first three arcs of the manga, which comprise 12 volumes. Though the Motorball arc alone of the "Alita: Battle Angel" manga is 10 issues long, being that much of the groundwork has been laid by the original movie, it seems likely that this won't be the central focus of the film.
More likely, the "Alita: Battle Angel" sequel will begin with the Motorball arc to provide some action before jumping into the return of Zapan (Ed Skrein), who Alita brutally disfigured toward the end of the original movie. Notably, the Motorball arc also introduces Shumira, another girl who becomes something of a surrogate daughter to Ido (Christoph Waltz), much like Alita.
Since Alita's conflict with Zapan was also a big part of the first film, it seems likely that James Cameron and company might make this the middle section of the film rather than the end. This would leave the film to finish off with the Tuned arc, which begins with Alita recovering from her vicious final battle with Zapan.
Whichever way the team behind "Alita: Battle Angel" decides to handle the upcoming sequels, though, the very vocal fanbase of the first film is no doubt just happy to have more of the impressive animation and jaw-dropping action of the franchise brought to life.