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.

Battle Angel fans won’t be happy with what James Cameron could possibly direct after the Avatar sequels. Despite some of the difficulties that he has experienced writing the Avatar sequels, Cameron has just purchased the rights to Taylor Stevens‘ The Informationist. THR was the first to report on Cameron’s latest acquisition, but without actually knowing which direction Cameron is headed towards after the Avatar sequels, it will be hard to know if he will direct Battle Angel first or if he will direct The Informationist first.

Check out a short synopsis of Stevens’ series of novels and a couple of quotes from the press release below.

While Avatar 2 and 3 are currently in development, the fact that there is an Avatar 4 also on the schedule seems to be downright crazy. Earlier, producer Jon Landau cleared some things up by saying there were no plans to shoot a fourth Avatar film. But that could all change, depending on the success of the next two installments. And if they are successful, who’s to say that Avatar 4 would be a direct follow up to the events of Avatar 3?

Well James Cameron spoke to MTV and said that he is exploring some ideas that would make Avatar 4 a prequel.

As much as we would all like to see a Battle Angel movie being directed by James Cameron, we all knew that the adaptation would have to take a back seat since the director announced that he would be working on the Avatar sequels. And while those sequels have yet to shoot, Cameron is giving us his word that Battle Angel is coming, just not as soon as you like to think.

In an interview with MTV, Cameron did drop a few hints about the Avatar sequels saying it would bring an awareness to the relationship that man and nature share. He also claims that the story of the Avatar sequels are much more important to tell than the story of Battle Angel. I’m sure Battle Angel fans beg to differ.