Jennifer Connelly joins cast of James Cameron's Alita: Battle Angel

Jennifer Connelly has joined the impressive, and still growing, cast of Robert Rodriguez and James Cameron’s ambitious sci-fi adaptation ‘Alita: Battle Angel’.

The ‘A Beautiful Mind’ and ‘Requiem for a Dream’ star joins Eiza González as the title character, as well as Christoph Waltz, Mahershala Ali and Ed Skrein.

– Seven 2017 Oscar nomination stories worth celebrating
– Cancelled Friday the 13th reboot would have been a supernatural origin story
– The Batman: Seven directors who could replace Ben Affleck

The Hollywood Reporter’s exclusive says Connelly will play one of the films villains.

The story is based on a popular 90s manga series, and focuses on a cyborg called Alita who is found in a 26th century scrapyard with her memories wiped.

Retaining her martial arts training, she becomes a bounty hunter and attempts to find out more about her mysterious past.

Alita will be played by ‘The Maze Runner’ series’ Salazar, with Waltz playing the scientist who finds and repairs Alita. Skrein and Ali will play villains: the former, cyborg called Zapan and the latter will play Vector, another of the film’s villains.

Connelly hasn’t appeared in such a a high profile film since sci-fi remake ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ in 2008. In the meantime she’s been starring in smaller, more indie fare. She’s currently filming firefighter drama ‘Granite Mountain’.

‘Alita’ has been a passion project of Cameron’s since the turn of the century, but repeatedly encountered problems due to the ‘Titanic’ director’s commitment to 2009’s ‘Avatar’ and its countless (four) impending sequels.

With those sequels still incoming, Cameron passed director duties over to ‘Sin City’s Rodriguez. The film is set for release on 20 July 2018.