9 Biggest Movies Coming Out In July 2018

Battle Angel is a relatively obscure Japanese manga that is notorious less for the work itself and more because it has been one of James Cameron's dream projects for decades. Cameron has been talking about turning the manga into a major Hollywood film since Titanic, but his work on the Avatar franchise has constantly set the project back.

Now that he is committed to returning to Pandora for the better part of a decade, Cameron has wisely handed over the reins to another director and simply producing the movie.

Enter Robert Rodriguez, who is of course a journeyman filmmaker who has been working steadily since the 90s, but this is easily the biggest movie he's ever attempted. How Rodriguez is going to bring his DIY approach to filmmaking into a giant scale blockbuster like Alita: Battle Angel should be an interesting experience even if the film itself flops. Hey, it's a Western adaptation of a manga. After flops like Speed Racer and Ghost in the Shell, it's hard to be certain of its quality.

The titular role of Alita has been handed to relative unknown Rosa Salazar, but Rodriguez and Cameron have packed the supporting cast with a plethora of familiar faces including Christoph Waltz, Mahershala Ali, Jennifer Connelly and Michelle Rodriguez. The film is sure to be visually spectacular at the very least, and who knows?

Maybe this will be the manga adaptation that finally does the source material justice, and considering how obscure Battle Angel is maybe even that won't matter.