Caffeinated Clint
James Cameron’s been flogging the bejesus out of his latest effort "Ghosts of the Abyss" and while doing so talking to every man and his dog about the next projects on his plate. One project he hasn’t touched on much is "Battle Angel Alita", and in an upcoming edition of Hot Dog magazine he belatedly addresses it. "Battle Angel is a very real possibility, and that’s the film that I fully intend to direct, that I *will* direct ? the issue is will it be the next film, or will it be the one after the next film? That’s really all there is to it at this point. We’ve done a tremendous amount of design for the film, we’re fine-tuning the script, it’s just a matter of time.", says Cameron.
"What I like about it is that when we first meet Alita she’s very young, she’s sort of almost pre-pubescent in a way, and she actually matures throughout the story. I like that, that the development of her mind actually affects her physicality. There’s a lot of really great things about it, and there’s a lot of things ? whether the artist really intended them or not ? that I read into it, and so I think it’ll be a good fusion of what Kashiro created and how I would do things."
"The manga is very episodic and very discordant ? it’s not internally consistent, meaning sometimes she looks like one thing and has one set of abilities, and at the whim of Kashiro he’ll go off on a whole different tangent. It needs to be fused and focused and given a centralised storyline. But the character will be very, very true to Alita as she is in the manga."
"Motorball might find its way more into the second film ? I definitely want to do more than one film. I want to create a world and a character that can go through at least one more film, possibly more. And that’s not just for the classic financial reasons, it’s just that I think there’s a possibility for a real mythology here, so I feel that this is a good canvas to do something big that’s got more scope."
Cameron also talks a little more about why he won’t be doing "True Lies 2".
"I’m not too keen on that. I just feel that the geopolitical climate has changed so much in the last year and a half. In the days following the September 11 attack, I just felt like I didn’t want to do anything that had to do with a light action-comedy dealing with a counter-terrorism unit. It just didn’t appeal to me at all. We played that light because at that time, I don’t think people took that kind of threat particularly seriously. I think people are very different now."
