Disney is not done with Alita: Battle Angel and allegedly have big plans for the franchise moving forth, unfortunately, we don’t hear about them until next year.
Alita: Battle Angel was the sleeper hit of 2019 beating some of the biggest films at the box office. To boot, is the most successful manga to film adaptation Hollywood has ever seen. Why haven’t Disney mentioned a sequel?
Early reports alleged that there was conflict of interest at Disney headquarters when Alita: Battle Angel released last year. It premiered only a month before the Disney/Marvel flagship film Captain Marvel launched. In a sense, Disney was competing with themselves.
Sadly for Alita fans, Disney was more invested in Captain Marvel since they completely oversaw the production of it. Alita: Battle Angel, at the time, was 20th Century Fox’s (now 20th Century Studios) project, and studio executives did not, at all, like the fact that the two films were being compared.
“Alita: Battle Angel was actually damaging to Marvel’s brand,” an insider revealed. “People who worked hard on Captain Marvel weren’t happy to see the film memed.”
Disney put Alita sequel and trilogy plans on hold because of conflict with Captain Marvel.
Disney distanced themselves from the Alita franchise further showing their bias for Captain Marvel and the Marvel Cinematic Universe and don’t plan on revisiting James Cameron’s and Jon Landau’s work until Captain Marvel’s story has concluded.
Fans have been more than just vocal when it comes to supporting Alita. The fan group known as The Alita Army have orchestrated many clever and successful campaigns that have garnered enough attention on a global scale.
Earlier this year The Alita Army funded a campaign that would see the #AlitaSequel banner fly over the Oscars and Disney Studios; this endeavour made international news and was appreciated by the film’s cast and producers.
The campaign funding exceeded its stretch goal by several thousand dollars; these proceeds went into a charity to help amputees.
Fans have also launched a petition for a Alita: Battle Angel sequel that is quickly approaching 200,000 signatures.
The fans’ efforts have not gone unnoticed as there is now talk of “big plans” for an Alita trilogy at Disney. However, contrary to reports, the film’s allegedly won’t be a Disney+ Originals.
Disney reportedly have plans for Alita trilogy but won’t announce them just yet.
“There’s a reason why Alita hasn’t found it’s way to Disney’s VOD platform; the source material is graphic and James Cameron has done an amazing job remaining faithful to it. The original film is not family friendly and — to my knowledge — won’t be coming to Disney+ for this reason.”
The sequels will most likely be made under the banner of 20th Century Studios and may not appear on Disney+ due to the fact that it doesn’t fit in with Disney’s family friendly visage.
Regardless, Disney have not completely abandoned Alita and they do have plans to follow through with James Cameron’s original trilogy idea — however — Disney will not make any official announcements until later next year.
Image credit: Alita: Battle Angel as Jack Sparrow by Lou (@LeadApprentice).