“I had my own Terminator with me”: Robert Rodriguez Took a Massive Risk With His $405M Movie Only to Impress James Cameron for a Bizarre Reason

James Cameron has impressed the world with his filmmaking through projects like The Terminator and its sequel, Titanic and Avatar series. His work is the reason why many have high regard for him which includes even his fellow filmmakers. Robert Rodriguez, who is also a long-time friend of the former is also one of his fans with the duo having a history of working on a cyberpunk project, Alita: Battle Angel. 

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Working on the project together, the latter talked about taking a major risk to impress the former and the reason is quite bizarre.

James Cameron Approached Robert Rodriguez for Alita: Battle Angel

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Alita: Battle Angel was finally released in 2019 but the project was in the works since the 2000s. Initially set to direct by director, James Cameron (who then produced the project), it went through several delays due to his work but eventually got into active production after his friend, Robert Rodriguez got hired to helm the film.

It was the Avatar director who approached his friend for that project. The El Mariachi director mentioned,

“Jim would rather put something in a drawer and not do it at all than do it incorrectly with the wrong director.”

The Titanic director entrusted his 186-page screenplay and 600 pages to Rodriguez despite knowing that they had different filmmaking styles.

“I saw his original drawings and they took my breath away. The main character had porcelain arms and huge manga eyes, and I thought, Wow, he’s going full manga with this. And he trusted me with the version that was in his head, and he said: if you fix the script for me, you can direct. So a month later I come back and say: here you go, free of charge. And he said: all right, it’s yours.”

He eventually accepted the film with the director officially coming onboard in April 2016, with Rosa Salazar getting cast as the lead the following month. However, he took quite a big risk in that project by bringing Cameron’s vision to life.

Robert Rodriguez Paid Homage to James Cameron With Alita: Battle Angel

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After converting the pages into a proper screenplay, Rodriguez wanted to do justice to that project by bringing the movie to what his friend wanted in the first place. Keeping in mind its’ technicalities, he also had to focus on getting the storyline connected to audiences on an emotional level.

However, one such challenge was to make the protagonist, Alita in such a way that the audience can catch on her expressions while keeping her doll-like persona. Given that her manga looks with animated expressions were hard to tackle, it was eventually made with the help of live-action and CGI.

He explained the entire filming process,

“We did worry about how it would all fit together. We kept the line in there that she wasn’t completely human. Because even a few years ago, we couldn’t have made her look like she does.”

Mentioning that the actress who portrayed Alita is “full of life,” getting her charm on the screen would entirely make her relatable as a human character. It was absolutely a major risk as he shared,

“I wasn’t making a movie for Fox. I was making it for Jim. And Jim and I are buddies. So if we liked it, that’s what we did. I felt like I had my own Terminator with me to protect me. It was pretty much like working on an independent film.”

Things eventually worked out in the end since he ended up bringing what he and Cameron deemed fit for the film. The film grossed over $405 million worldwide with a sequel in the works.

Source: The Irish Times