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Alita: Battle Angel Film Casts Machete Kills Actor Marko Zaror

The film news website Screen Anarchy reported on Sunday that Marko Zaror (Machete Kills) is joining the cast of Alita: Battle Angel, James Cameron and Robert Rodriguez's live-action film of Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM) manga. Zaror will play Ajakutty, a Motorball player who also appears in the original manga.

The film will star Rosa Salazar (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, The Divergent Series: Insurgent, Man Seeking Woman) in the lead role. Other cast members include:

• Christoph Waltz (Inglourious Basterds, Django Unchained, Spectre, The Legend of Tarzan) as Doctor Dyson Ido, "the cybersurgeon who finds the cyborg [protagonist] and becomes her mentor."
• Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen, A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, Preacher, The Dark Tower, The Birth of a Nation) as "a monstrous cyborg in a villain role that will call for plenty of CG and greenscreen."
• Ed Skrein (The Transporter Refueled, Deadpool) as Zapan, "a villainous cyborg who is in possession of a weapon called the Damascus blade."
• Keean Johnson (Nashville, Spooksville) as Hugo, the "love interest" and "a young man who teaches Alita how to play a gladiator-style game called Motorball but who also has a secret side job stealing robot parts."
• Mahershala Ali (Luke Cage, House of Cards) as "one of the movie's villains, a man named Vector who runs and fixes matches in a gladiator-style combat game called Motorball."
• Eiza Gonzales (From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series)
• Jorge Lendeborg Jr. (Spider-Man: Homecoming,The Land) as the "cunning and sly friend" of Keean Johnson's character.
• Lana Condor (X-Men: Apocalypse) as Koyomi, an orphaned teenage photographer in the manga.
• Leonard Wu (Marco Polo) as Kinuba, a cyborg character in the manga.

The Hollywood Reporter described the film:

Set in the 26th century, Alita: Battle Angel tells of a female cyborg that is discovered in a trash yard by a scientist. With no memory of her previous life except her deadly martial arts training, the woman becomes a bounty hunter, tracking down criminals.

The action-adventure story is meant to serve as a backdrop to themes of self-discovery and the search for love.

The film began shooting in Austin in October.

Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Sin City, Spy Kids) is set to direct the film. James Cameron and his Lightstorm Entertainment partner Jon Landau are producing the project, and Shutter Island's Laeta Kalogridis penned a script. Fox has scheduled the film for a wide release on July 20, 2018. The film will get an IMAX release.

[Via IMDb]