Whilst the production actually finished last week, now comes word on a surprise cast member for Robert Rodriguez’s upcoming adaptation of Alita: Battle Angel.

EW is reporting that Michelle Rodriguez is actually a part of the cast for the manga adap, and that her role is that of Gelda – best described as a badass cyborg warrior. As mentioned, the film has already wrapped, but it’s only now that the actress’ involvement has been revealed. This will mark the third collaboration between Robert Rodriguez and Michelle Rodriguez, with them having previously together worked on the two Machete movies.

Already confirmed for the film are Rosa Salazar as Alita, Christoph Waltz, Jackie Earle Haley, Ed Skrein, Jennifer Connelly, Eiza Gonzales, Lana Condor, Leonard Wu, and Mahershala Ali.

Alita: Battle Angel is a manga tale set in the 26th century and which centres on the titular Alita, an amnesiac cyborg who is literally picked up off a scrapheap by Doc Dyson. Given a timely rebuild, Alita soon uses her martial arts expertise to hunt down a whole host of no-good criminal sorts.

Despite James Cameron having been developing the film for an age, the man now tasked with helming Alita is Robert Rodriguez due to Cameron’s hectic Avatar schedule which sees him working on four Avatar sequels at the moment.

Alita: Battle Angel is set for a July 20th, 2018 release.