Exclusive: We talk Alita: Battle Angel w/ Robert Rodriguez and Rosa Salazar!

Last Updated on August 2, 2021

Last week, at the very start of SXSW in Austin, Texas, we were invited to visit Troublemaker Studios, the impressive place Robert Rodriguez has made almost every one of his movies. The occasion was to have an early talk about ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, the ambitious adaptation of Yukito Kishiro’s popular manga BATTLE ANGEL ALITA that Rodriguez is co-producing with James Cameron‘s Lightstorm Entertainment. (Cameron has been involved with the project since 2000.) After a tour of Iron City, where a good portion of ALITA takes place, myself and a handful of other journalists were able to talk to Rodriguez and Cameron’s longtime producer Jon Landau, as well as Alita herself, Rosa Salazar, and Keean Johnson, who plays Alita’s love interest Hugo. (That interview takes place in the “Kansas Bar,” a main watering hole within Iron City.)

Below the interviews, check out a few pics of Iron City, which Rodriguez says should still be standing for the next ten years or so. Make of that what you will!

Visionary filmmakers James Cameron (AVATAR) and Robert Rodriguez (SIN CITY) create a groundbreaking new heroine in ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL, an action-packed story of hope, love and empowerment. Set several centuries in the future, the abandoned Alita (Rosa Salazar) is found in the scrapyard of Iron City by Ido (Christoph Waltz), 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. Everything is new to Alita, every experience a first. As she learns to navigate her new life and the treacherous streets of Iron City, Ido tries to shield Alita from her mysterious past while her street-smart new friend, Hugo (Keean Johnson), offers instead to help trigger her memories. A growing affection develops between the two until deadly forces come after Alita and threaten her newfound relationships. It is then that Alita discovers she has extraordinary fighting abilities that could be used to save the friends and family she’s grown to love. Determined to uncover the truth behind her origin, Alita sets out on a journey that will lead her to take on the injustices of this dark, corrupt world, and discover that one young woman can change the world in which she lives.

ALITA: BATTLE ANGEL opens December 21, 2018.