Christoph Waltz still wants to make Avatar. They also hold the rights to another sci-fi project from the Terminator filmmaker in the form of Alita: Battle Angel, a live-action adaptation of the cyberpunk manga/anime which Cameron developed for several years before handing it off to Robert Rodriguez to direct instead.
Released in February 2019 (about a month before Disney formally acquired Fox), Alita: Battle Angel stars Rosa Salazar as the titular hero, a cyborg who awakens in the 26th century with no memory of her past but is helped by the kindly scientist Dr. Dyson Ido (Waltz). Using the old rule of thumb that a movie needs to double its budget to make a profit, a sequel has yet to be announced and Waltz suspects it has more to do with the franchise's new owners than anything else.
Speaking with Collider to promote his new Quibi project, Most Dangerous Game, the Oscar-winner assured he'd "Of course!" return for Alita: Battle Angel 2, saying "I know that people liked it and aside from what others said, I loved it and I liked working on it and I liked the result." He also itted he hasn't heard anything about a sequel happening and speculated it has to do with Disney buying Fox, before adding "Maybe it doesn’t fit into the Disneyfication, but I have no clue. I have no clue."
It stands to reason Waltz is right about Disney being the biggest roadblock to Alita 2 at the moment. Following their acquisition, the studio payoff to Alita's sequel tease ever since.
Case in point: back in February, encouraging them to keep pestering Disney with requests to make it happen. Suffice it to say, there's an audience that wants more Alita; whether it's big enough to get the Mouse House's attention, that's another matter.
Source: Collider
