The upcoming Alita: Battle Angel is certainly assembling an impressive rogues gallery. Last week we learned that the always-creepy Jackie Earle Haley will be playing one of the movie’s cyborg antagonists, and now we have word that Ed Skrein, who played bad guy Ajax in Deadpool, will also be be pulling villain duty in the film.
Based on Yukito Kishiro’s classic manga, Alita: Battle Angel concerns an amnesiac cyborg, who discovers she has knowledge of the legendary martial artist Panzer Kunst, which she uses as a wandering mercenary and competitor in a brutal sport called Motorball. Skrein will play Zapan, a deranged fellow mercenary, who becomes Alita’s most dangerous and personal rival. At one point, he even acquires one of Alita’s former cyborg bodies and uses it against her. Needless to say, Zapan is bad, bad news.
Alita: Battle Angel was a James Cameron passion project for years, before he finally passed the movie onto Robert Rodriguez to direct. In addition to Skrein and Haley, the movie will star Rosa Salazar as Alita, and Christoph Waltz in a mentor role as Dr. Dyson Ido.
Based on casting, it seems like Alita: Battle Angel is sticking pretty closely to the source material, which is exciting, as the original Battle Angel Alita manga is one of the best action comics of all time. It’s also plenty twisted. With Robert Rodriguez at the helm, we could have another Mad Max: Fury Road-like spectacle on our hands if everything goes right.
Alita: Battle Angel hits theaters June 20, 2018
(Via the Hollywood Reporter)
