‘Alita: Battle Angel’ Creator Opens Up About Its Live-Action Future

Anime and manga fans had mixed reactions to the first trailer for Robert Rodriguez’s Alita: Battle Angel, but how does the series’ initial creator feel about the prospect?

In turns out the original creator has wanted a Hollywood live-action adaptation of the series for years:

In an interview with Animerica, series creator Yukito Kishiro said the following when asked how he would feel if a studio approached him about adapting his series to film, “It’s my childhood dream…I’d love to see the whole spectacle of Motorball brought to life. I’d love to see those special effects.”

As to how a live-action film should adapt the series, Kishiro had some advice, “For the sake of a live-action film, the overall plot could be set aside; the main character wouldn’t necessarily have to be Gally. It would be okay with me to make something a little different than the manga version.”

Kishiro is fine with any changes the live-action would make for translation and adaptation purposes, but does have some reservations, “I think it might be difficult to make the original Gunnm [Gunnm is the way the series is referred to in its native Japan] the way I envision it in live-action. There are several parts to the story, but I think the Motorball segment by itself could make a great a movie.”

Thankfully for Kishiro and Battle Angel Alita fans, director Robert Rodriguez‘s plans for Alita: Battle Angel are too focus on the “spine story” of the first four volumes of the story and will be sure to include Motorball.

For those unfamiliar with Battle Angel Alita, the series was originally created by Yukito Kishiro. The series is set in a post-apocalyptic future and follows Alita, a cyborg who is found in a garbage heap by a doctor and rebuilt. Completely devoid of her memory, all she has to cling to is a legendary cyborg martial art known as Panzer Kunst. With this knowledge, Alita decides to become a bounty hunter. Originally published in Shueisha’s Weekly Business Jump in 1990, it was collected into nine volumes and licensed for an English language release by Viz Media.

The series was adapted into a short anime OVA series, and was the only anime adaptation to date. The film, Alita: Battle Angel, had been struck with production delays for several years before finally debuting its first trailer. Alita: Battle Angel will be directed by Robert Rodriguez, produced by James Cameron and Jon Landau, stars Rosa Salazar (as the titular Alita), Christoph Waltz, Jennifer Connelly, Mahershala Ali, Ed Skrein, Jackie Earle Haley, and will hit theaters July 20, 2018.