Robert Rodriguez Offers Update on ALITA: BATTLE ANGLE Sequel; The Iron City Still Stands — GeekTyrant

Geek Tyrant

05-05-2025

It's been six years since Alita: Battle Angel hit theaters, but for fans of the cyberpunk epic, the wait for a sequel has felt much longer. While updates have been scarce, director Robert Rodriguez just dropped a promising new update that confirms: the dream of more Alita is very much alive.
Appearing on The Joe Rogan Experience , Rodriguez made it clear he's not finished with Yukito Kishiro's world. 'Yeah, we want to do another one for sure,' Rodriguez said. 'That whole city is still in my parking lot. 20-foot ceilings, seven streets. It's like the largest standing set in the country, if not the world.'
The sequel has had a complicated path. Rodriguez once doubted it would ever get made, especially after Disney acquired 20th Century Fox. But his hopes were reignited when he started seeing more Fox projects moving forward.
If a follow-up does happen, he and producer James Cameron already have enough material for two more movies. Cameron previously said that they were planning multiple sequels.
Rodgriguz also previously shared: 'Yeah, Jim [Cameron] and I always talk about how we'd love to do another Alita. That studio [20th Century] was bought by another studio [Disney]. They're starting to make movies now. But that for a while 20th Century wasn't making any of their movies. I think now you're seeing a few rolling out. We would love to."
Producer Jon Landau previously talked about the sequel saying, 'We're working on it,' and shared: "We're very excited about that prospect. Alita is a movie that even now having recently like re-watched it for what we had, we're really proud of that movie. And we think that there are more stories to tell with her character and that's why we want to go back to it."
The producer also explained that when they do make the movie, they will utilize the filmmaking technology that was created to help bring Avatar 2: The Way of Water to life:
'I think what we've learned from Avatar is how much more facial nuance and subtlety that we can get into characters that we want to be emotional and emote that are humanoid. Alita would not have been possible, but for what we did on Avatar . Avatar: Way of Water would not be what it is but what we did for Alita . And now let's put that back and give it back to Alita . We're talking to Robert and talking to Rosa and all is good.'
The film is based on the manga series Gunnm by Yukito Kishiro. The story is set several centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido, a compassionate cyber-doctor who takes the unconscious cyborg Alita to his clinic.
When Alita awakens, she has no memory of who she is, nor does she have any recognition of the world she finds herself in. As Alita learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield her from her mysterious past.
Cameron and Rodgriguez initially planned out a trilogy of films, and Cameron has written over a thousand pages of notes that would cover that entire story. Hopefully, this sequel gets made.