Alita: Battle Angel director Robert Rodriguez says he rewrote script for free before James Cameron let him direct

It is common knowledge that the Titanic helmer intended to develop Avatar and _Alita: Battle Angel_ side by side in early 2000, but James Cameron chose to go ahead with the tale of the tailed blue-aliens due to lack of technology to adapt the Japanese manga series Gunnm at the time. The project was eventually steered by Robert Rodriguez, who recently revealed that he made a deal with the filmmaker that he was unable to refuse. [caption id=“attachment_5550311” align=“alignnone” width=“825”] A still from Alita: Battle Angel. Screengrab from YouTube[/caption] During his interaction with Irish Times, Rodriguez said that James would rather shelf a project than hand it over to the “wrong director”. He said that when he saw the initial illustrations of Alita, he was thoroughly impressed with the Manga-style that Cameron had ably incorporated. Cameron then said that if Rodriguez agrees to “fix the script for me, you can direct.” Hence, a month later, Rodriguez presented his version of the script “free of charge.” The rest, as they say, is history. But despite Cameron’s approval, Rodriguez had to make changes with his style of filmmaking. While Rodriguez oriented himself with the target audience, Cameron was more concerned with the science behind the film. “I’m thinking about what little kids would like to see. I put jetpacks on kids. Jim (James) needs to know about the science of the jetpacks.” said the director.