Alita: Battle Angel has been one of James Cameron‘s long-gestating projects. The adaptation has taken somewhat of a backseat with Cameron focusing on his Avatar sequels. Despite the filmmaker declaring that the film would have to be pried out of his cold dead hands, it has been given to Robert Rodriguez – much to Cameron’s approval.

With Rodriguez in the driver’s seat, the film can proceed that much closer to production, and it seems as they are close to finding an actress to play the lead role. According to new reports, Maika Monroe, Zendaya, Rosa Salazar, and Bella Thorne are the new frontrunners for the title role. More on the story below.

James Cameron has made the two highest-grossing films of all time, Avatar and Titanic, so he is in a position with his career now where he can do pretty much anything he wants. For many years he has developed a film adaptation of Yukito Kishiro‘s manga series Battle Angel Alita for 20th Century Fox, but that endeavor has seen its share of production delays while its would-be powerhouse director paid several visits to the planet Pandora.

Even still, Cameron has long desired to make a movie based on Battle Angel. That is until he decided that he would no longer make anything but sequels to his billion dollar sci-fi blockbuster Avatar – three of which he intends to film back-to-back. That means the Battle Angel movie that has long been relegated to the backburner spot on Cameron’s development slate is going to be in need of a new maestro to bring it to the silver screen, and that maestro is Robert Rodriguez.

The Texas-based director of Desperado, From Dusk Till Dawn, and the Spy Kids and Sin City movies is currently in negotiations with Fox to take the helm of the feature that has been renamed Alita: Battle Angel. Cameron will remain on board to produce along with his longtime producing partner Jon Landau under their Lightstorm Entertainment company.