10 Upcoming Movies That Could Bomb At The Box Office

James Cameron had discussed making Alita on and off again for almost a decade before deciding to f**k off back to Pandora for the forseeable future, but the director of the two highest-grossing movies in history still serves as producer and co-writer on the upcoming sci-fi blockbuster after handing the director's chair over to Robert Rodriguez.

While it can be argued that there is no suitable replacement for someone as well-versed in the realms of big-budget spectacle as Cameron, Rodriguez is a very strange choice indeed. It just seems odd for the self-professed 'one man film crew' and 'outlaw filmmaker' that runs his own studio and has frequently acted as editor, director of photography, camera operator, composer, production designer and visual effects supervisor on his in-house projects to take the helm of a $200m studio project developed by other people.

Big-budget sci-fi has shown a resurgence at the box office in recent years, but they tend to be filmmaker-driven stories like Gravity, Interstellar and The Martian. On the other side of the coin, when the director fails to maintain control over their massively expensive production you end up with John Carter, Jupiter Ascending or Valerian.

Alita: Battle Angel's chances of success rest not only upon how good the finished movie turns out to be or Robert Rodriguez' ability to marshal such a huge production, but also how well the director adapts to a brand new and incredibly challenging filmmaking environment with no less a name than James Cameron looking over his shoulder.