News
CG Artist Interviewed on Prelim. Battle Angel Designs
posted on by Egan Loo
The MarketSaw 3D cinema production blog has posted an interview with Mark Goerner, a digital artist who worked on James Cameron's long-in-development computer-animated adaptation of Yukito Kishiro's Battle Angel Alita (GUNNM) manga. Goerner spent about a year and a half as one of the project's staffers and primarily designed aspects of Battle Angel's setting. (Although the interview excerpts images from the original manga, the digital artwork in the interview are from Goerner's other projects, and not from the Battle Angel film project.)
While much of the pre-production work on the project, such as the actual design for the main character Gally, is finished, there is no indication if or when Battle Angel will actually be released to theaters. During their work, the crew agreed that it would be extremely important that Gally and the other major characters retain their "inherent styles and subtle personalities," and that the technology and sets of the manga were represented faithfully in the film.
The Entertainment Weekly magazine had reported in 2006 that the movie was slated for theaters next year. However, Cameron mentioned last May in a Hollywood Reporter interview that after he completes his current sci-fi epic Avatar (no relation to the Avatar: The Last Air Bender television series), he wants to turn his attention to a biopic about the Cuban free diver Francisco Ferreras. Avatar currently has an expected release date of December 18, 2009. Cameron's involvement with the Battle Angel project was first confirmed as far back as 2003.
