Editing Dark Angel (American TV series) (section)

===Casting and filming===
[[File:Jessica Alba SDCC 2014.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=A portrait shot of Jessica Alba, an attractive woman with long brown hair, smiling|Jessica Alba (pictured in 2014) won the role of Max over more than 1,000 other actresses.]]

More than a thousand young actresses were considered for the part of Max.<ref name=jay/> Cameron started reviewing audition tapes when the field had been narrowed down to twenty or thirty applicants. He was initially not impressed with Alba's audition tape, saying "she had her head down, she was reading out of the script&nbsp;... she didn't present herself all that well. But there was something about the way she read the script that copped an attitude that I liked." Cameron continually reviewed the audition tapes but kept coming back to Alba's, eventually deciding that he needed to meet her.{{sfn|Garcia|2012|page=57–58}} Alba was hired for the role before the script was written. Eglee said: "We had the benefit of being able to write a script kind of backward, we were writing for this actress, with her cadences and her rhythms and her sensibilities and her attitude and her slang." To train for the role, Alba spent a year doing martial arts and gymnastics and riding motorcycles.<ref name=storm/>

The two-hour premiere episode cost up to $10 million to produce, and Cameron reportedly "brought the pilot in on time and on budget".<ref name=jay/> Subsequent episodes had a considerably smaller budget. Fox spent heavily on the promotional campaign for the premiere, paying for theatrical trailers, billboards, and [[guerilla marketing]].<ref name=sandra/> Cameron took a "very basic view" of the show's chance of success, saying: "If it flies, it flies. If it doesn't, it doesn't&nbsp;... If people connect with it, which I hope they will, fine. If we don't find an audience, we deserve to be off the air. It's that simple."<ref name=jay/> Eglee admitted the series had been "routinely over budget" in the first season, and feared that this would be a factor in whether or not the show was renewed for a second season, though Cameron downplayed these concerns.<ref name=heldenfels>{{cite news |last=Heldenfels |first=R.D. |date=July 21, 2001 |title=Producer Tells of New Plans for 'Dark Angel' |url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=6aZGAAAAIBAJ&pg=3992%2C3309875 |newspaper=[[Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine)|Sun Journal]] |location=Lewiston, Maine |page=10}}</ref>

Fox "just barely" renewed the series for a second season.{{sfn|Muir|2008|page=244}} The budget for episodes in season two was $1.3 million each.{{sfn|Muir|2008|page=246}} After the intended director of the final episode did not work out, Cameron decided to step in and fill the position. He did this partially for the experience but also to show the network the potential for a third season. It was his first experience directing a TV drama.

The producers were initially told a third season had been approved, but two days later Fox informed them that the series had been canceled.

{{blockquote|They called us on Saturday and told us we were on schedule and we'd been picked up. We got together Saturday night and celebrated. Sunday goes by, and Monday morning we get a call saying, "No, you're not on the schedule! It's been changed." I've never heard of that happening. But then, I'd never been around television.&nbsp;... We were supposed to be on a plane on Monday to go to the [network] upfront in New York on Tuesday. They called us that day and told us not to go! I was pissed!{{sfn|Garcia|2012|page=62}}|James Cameron}}

''Dark Angel'' was set in Seattle, and filmed in [[Vancouver]], [[British Columbia]] at [[Lions Gate Studios]]. Other filming locations included the [[Vancouver Art Gallery]], as well as [[Buntzen Lake]] and [[Riverview Hospital (Coquitlam)|Riverview Hospital]], also in British Columbia.<ref>{{cite web |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150626121932/http://ca.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/02/10-tv-shows-filmed-vancouver/dark-angel |archive-date=June 26, 2015 |url=http://ca.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/02/10-tv-shows-filmed-vancouver/dark-angel |title=10 TV Shows You Didn't Know Were Filmed in Vancouver |last=Turner |first=Christopher |date=February 28, 2015 |work=[[Complex (magazine)|Complex]] }}</ref>