Xixax Film Forum

The Director's Chair => The Director's Chair => Topic started by: modage on June 19, 2003, 01:30:18 PM

Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on June 19, 2003, 01:30:18 PM
he rules. he gets a topic.

-THE TERMINATOR
-ALIENS
-THE ABYSS
-TERMINATOR II: JUDGEMENT DAY
-TRUE LIES
-TITANIC
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Sleuth on June 19, 2003, 01:39:24 PM
Yeah, he's cool
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: phil marlowe on June 19, 2003, 01:40:29 PM
i love all those films exept titanic wich i don't hate but thought was very very VERY long. he sertanly rules but he makes too much money to be cool.

:yabbse-sad:
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: phil marlowe on June 19, 2003, 01:41:24 PM
hahah i didn't read tremolosloths post.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Sleuth on June 19, 2003, 01:41:52 PM
Out of those listed films, try to pick only one.  For me it comes down to Aliens and Terminator 2  (probably Aliens, though)
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on June 19, 2003, 01:57:56 PM
Quote from: tremoloslothOut of those listed films, try to pick only one.  For me it comes down to Aliens and Terminator 2  (probably Aliens, though)

i agree.  if i HAD to rank them...

1. ALIENS
2. TERMINATOR II: JUDGEMENT DAY
3. THE ABYSS
4. THE TERMINATOR
5. TRUE LIES
6. TITANIC

he needs to get on that "next movie" deal.  that 3d documentary doesnt count.  the longer the wait, the more the anticipation (therfore, the less likely he'll be able to TOP the expectations).  which must be a slight amount of pressure, having the highest grossing movie of all time.  but he's totally kubricking out leaving 6 years (and counting) in between movies.  on a slightly confessional note, i liked TITANIC.  i only saw it ONCE ever on christmas eve morning the week it was released and it worked for me.  however, being a movie theatre employee at the time, i had no idea what i was about to embark on.  the movie would not stop playing.  for months and months it seemed like it would never end, on so many multiple screens with that SONG playing every hour in the lobby, as well as during the closing credits, (i probably heard it atleast 25 times A DAY), so the further i moved away from MY experience with seeing hte movie, the more i cannot seperate the hellish nature of its existence after LEOMANIA and having to clean up those theatres.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Derek on June 19, 2003, 04:03:45 PM
I can't believe its the highest grossing film of all time, tied for most Oscars and nominations, and still doesn't place on the top 250 on imdb. Something's rotten in Denmark.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: phil marlowe on June 19, 2003, 04:06:17 PM
Quote from: DerekSomething's rotten in Denmark.
?
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on June 19, 2003, 04:06:18 PM
if 13 year old girls ruled the world...
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Alethia on June 19, 2003, 07:49:49 PM
aliens
T2
the abyss
titanic
terminator
true lies (i think this is a rather poor movie)
pirahna part II: the spawning (hard to believe he was involved)
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: ShanghaiOrange on June 19, 2003, 10:05:13 PM
Quote from: ewardpirahna part II: the spawning (hard to believe he was involved)

Everybody's got to start somewhere.
Scorsese and Coppola made worked for Roger Corman. :(

James Cameron is good at making fun movies, and fun at making good movies.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Cecil on June 19, 2003, 10:33:47 PM
the terminator is my number 1

titanic... bah, first half boring, second half well made. thats it
Title: "Too much" money?
Post by: rezzner on July 01, 2003, 12:38:02 AM
Quote from: Phil Marlowei love all those films exept titanic wich i don't hate but thought was very very VERY long. he sertanly rules but he makes too much money to be cool.

:yabbse-sad:

Okay, I was a good boy and searched through the other messages to be certain that nobody else had addressed it.

Where does it say that someone can't be cool because they have too much money?  And what is too much money?  The only people who complain about people having "too much" money are those who will never have it.

As for his work?  I think he's done some really impressive work.  I would personally put Aliens at the top.  Well, the Terminator was pretty damn good too.  Hard choice...
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Ghostboy on July 01, 2003, 01:10:34 AM
My experience with Titanic is almost exactly the same as themodernage's, except that I was the one projecting it for those six months. But that first night that I saw it, before it opened...it was pretty stunning. I'd like to go back and watch it again some time. I figure it's probably on the level of Forrest Gump -- a good movie ruined by excessive public affection.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: life_boy on July 01, 2003, 03:40:04 AM
Personally, I really enjoy The Abyss.

As for Terminator 2 and Aliens, ou have to hand it to Cameron.  He can make a kick ass sequel.  Haven't seen Piranaha 2, though.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on July 01, 2003, 09:40:09 PM
Quote from: GhostboyMy experience with Titanic is almost exactly the same as themodernage's, except that I was the one projecting it for those six months. But that first night that I saw it, before it opened...it was pretty stunning. I'd like to go back and watch it again some time. I figure it's probably on the level of Forrest Gump -- a good movie ruined by excessive public affection.

you said it!  *(high fives).  yeah, that was the best part of the job, seeing movies usually the nite before they would open.  we employees would screen it for ourselves all summer seeing the movies before anybody.  it was pretty cool.  except occasionally, they would send a movie early for some sort of special advance screening, and then we'd see it REAL early.  like, i think i had seen theres something about mary 3 times before it opened, because we got a print of it like a month before it came out.  i couldnt believe how funny it was.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on July 07, 2003, 11:44:41 PM
uh oh, the rumors are true, he has officially gone insane...

James Cameron recently talked with BBC1 and revealed he's very happy with how Terminator 3 ended up: "In one word : Great. There was a small part of me that hoped it wasn't good - but another part of me hope'd it succeeded. And it did. And I'm so glad it did. Jonathon's made a great movie. Arnold's in great form. I really like what he's done with it". If he had done it, would he have handled it differently: "Yes. That's only natural. I mightn't have structrued it the same, nor may I have ended it the same way - but coming in where he has, such a hard thing to do, and I give Jonathan points for it".
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on July 07, 2003, 11:48:28 PM
Quote from: themodernage02There was a small part of me that hoped it wasn't good

You can tell on his commentary track for the T2 - Extreme DVD. He makes fun of the T3 tagline: "She'll be back."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on July 07, 2003, 11:49:07 PM
it doesn't surprise me that ur insincerity scanner didn't pick up on James Cameron lying through his ass on that.

he basically said he would have done the whole thing differently, and obviously better. but he's happy the jonathon dude didn't ruin the franchise and that he can look forward to making money off future sequels.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on July 07, 2003, 11:57:18 PM
James Cameron Up for Alien 5
Source: Dark Horizons

Talking to BBC One, James Cameron said he thought Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines turned out great. He doesn't think the same about Alien 3, however, but he's ready to change all that.

"I couldn't stand Alien 3 - how they could just go in there and kill off all these great characters we introduced in Aliens, and the correlation between mother and daughter. It stunk, but hopefully I'll get a chance to rectify all that," Cameron said.

Does this mean he's attached to an Alien 5? "To an extent, yes. We're looking at doing another one. Something similiar to what we did with Aliens. A bunch of great characters, and of course Sigourney. I've even discussed the possibility of putting him [Arnold Schwarzenegger] into the Alien movie".
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Sal on July 08, 2003, 01:21:15 AM
Quote from: themodernage02uh oh, the rumors are true, he has officially gone insane...

James Cameron recently talked with BBC1 and revealed he's very happy with how Terminator 3 ended up: "In one word : Great. There was a small part of me that hoped it wasn't good - but another part of me hope'd it succeeded. And it did. And I'm so glad it did. Jonathon's made a great movie. Arnold's in great form. I really like what he's done with it". If he had done it, would he have handled it differently: "Yes. That's only natural. I mightn't have structrued it the same, nor may I have ended it the same way - but coming in where he has, such a hard thing to do, and I give Jonathan points for it".

It sounds like Cameron's just being nice for the public.  Obviously he wants good relations with Mostow, and I think because he didn't kill off any of his original characters, he came out of the theater in one piece (peace).
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on July 08, 2003, 02:12:01 AM
Quote from: MacGuffinJames Cameron Up for Alien 5
Source: Dark Horizons

Talking to BBC One, James Cameron said he thought Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines turned out great. He doesn't think the same about Alien 3, however, but he's ready to change all that.

"I couldn't stand Alien 3 - how they could just go in there and kill off all these great characters we introduced in Aliens, and the correlation between mother and daughter. It stunk, but hopefully I'll get a chance to rectify all that," Cameron said.

Does this mean he's attached to an Alien 5? "To an extent, yes. We're looking at doing another one. Something similiar to what we did with Aliens. A bunch of great characters, and of course Sigourney. I've even discussed the possibility of putting him [Arnold Schwarzenegger] into the Alien movie".
jesus, how big a flop was solaris, anyway?
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on August 07, 2003, 12:15:45 PM
James Cameron's Next: Looks like the "Titanic" director is settling back behind the camera yet again. RTE Interactive reports that James Cameron will direct a movie based on the real-life love story of freedivers Francisco Ferreras and his wife, Audrey Mestre. Seems "Mestre learnt the sport of freediving from her husband and died last year attempting to break her world record of diving 557.7 feet on a single breath of air", and Cameron will travel to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico this October to film Ferreras' attempt to match his wife's record - the resort where the couple first met and where he taught his wife to dive. This will mark Cameron's first "scripted feature" in over six years.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Spike on August 07, 2003, 03:00:56 PM
-THE TERMINATOR
An amazing masterpiece! I think it's better than the second one.
-ALIENS
Haven't seen it yet.
-THE ABYSS
See "Aliens".
-TERMINATOR II: JUDGEMENT DAY
Really great, but not as good as Part 1.
-TRUE LIES
A fantastic action film, very funny and entertaining - one of his best!
-TITANIC
I quiet liked it. Great actors, good story, fantastic effects, very entertaining.
Title: Cameron
Post by: adolfwolfli on August 08, 2003, 08:56:54 AM
How could you put Titanic at the bottom of the list?  There are people that saw this 16 times in the theaters.  The only way that EVER happens is when a movie touches a very deep, primal, mythological core, way down inside.

It touched a chord with people across the planet.  Sure, it's got Leonardo DiCraprio and a slightly cheesy love story at its core, but I was absolutely BLOWN away the first time I saw this movie.  Maybe it had to do with the fact that I saw it opening night, before ANY of the hype, when it was still uncertain whether this was going to be a big hit or a stupendous, studio-sinking flop.  Not to mention I saw it projected on an IMAX screen.  

It's hard to look at the movie now with fresh eyes, years after all the box-office records, hype, Celine Dion hysteria...but there are truly unforgettable images in that film.  I would rate it as Jim's second only under Aliens.

I guess in the end there are guys that are too macho to say they like Titanic.  It is, in essence, a girl's film.  Syd Field (the screenwriting guru), in one of his books, said that he tried long and hard to figure out why his young, teenage niece and friends had returned to see this film OVER and OVER again, playing their small part in helping to make it one of the top grossing films of all time (at the time).  It wasn't the epic scale or the special FX (a lot of movies have that).  It wasn't the historical accuracy (or inaccuracy).  When asking the group of teenage girls why they saw Titanic 16 times in the theater, they said it was because "Jack dies".  

Think about that.  Especially any executives reading this.  The reason they saw this over and over was because it had a relatively unhappy ending, with one of two main characters drowining and freezing to death.  Rose, in experiencing Jack's death, grows as a character.  It is cathartic for her, as well as the audience.  She finds her independance and herself through loss.

Anyway, I am rambling, but I just wanted to stick up for Titanic.  Very few films, when I remember them, give me such vivid visual memories.  I always think of the old couple on their cot, shot from overhead, as the boat is sinking, clutching eachother, with water rushing under their bed.  

Amazing.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on October 09, 2003, 11:47:26 AM
Salma Hayek in James Cameron's Diver Biopic?
Source: Univision, Latino Review

According to Univision, Salma Hayek will star in James Cameron's love story between freediver Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras and wife Audrey Mestre at 20th Century Fox for a 2005 release.

Hayek would play Mestre who, after learning the extreme sport of freediving under the tutelage of her Cuban-born husband and breaking his record, died last year as she tried to better her world mark of descending 557.7 feet while holding a single breath of air in her lungs.

Producer/director Cameron will film the upcoming October 12 attempt by Ferreras to match his wife's world record in Cabo San Lucas, the site where the Cuban diver first met the French-born aspiring marine biologist and taught her to dive.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: cron on January 23, 2004, 09:29:57 AM
Cameron resurfaces with new sci-fi flick
Staff and agencies

Thursday January 22, 2004


James Cameron: Going digital
 
Seven years after the then-phenomenal box office success of Titanic, James Cameron has announced plans to return to the director's chair with a new feature.
Since the record-breaking maritime epic was released in 1997, Cameron has confined himself to factual material, directing two documentaries: Ghosts of The Abyss, his 3-D account of finding the Titanic at the bottom of the Atlantic, and the TV special Expedition: Bismarck.

Speaking at a Hollywood screening of Terminator 2 this week, Cameron said he has already started work on a new fictional project, scheduled to begun shooting later this year for 20th Century Fox.

The exact nature of the as-yet-untitled film is still vague. Cameron would only describe the project as a "big-budget science-fiction film with a pile of special effects." He did, however, reveal that in making the movie, he would be abandoning working with film - using instead state-of-the-art high definition 3-D digital video cameras.

Digital video divides the film community.  
 
It is chiefly used on indie projects to keep costs down, with one notable exception in George Lucas, who has been using the technology to shoot recent Star Wars episodes.

Whatever the technology, Cameron and Fox will be hoping the project repeats the success of its predecessor Titanic - the film that, after a famously troubled stint in production, eventually grossed over $1.8bn and won 11 Oscars
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on January 28, 2004, 06:20:31 PM
Title: Ghosts of the Abyss
Released: 27th April 2004
SRP: $29.99

Further Details
Disney Home Video have sent over details on a two disc release of Ghosts of the Abyss which is a film by award winning director James Cameron. The film goes back to the Titanic equipped with state of the art technology, along with a team of top underwater explorers and filmmakers. Actor Bill Paxton joins Cameron on this astonishing underwater voyage. The disc will be available to own from the 27th April this year and will include both a sixty minute theatrical version of the film as well as a ninety minute extended version. This will include lots of unseen footage made especially for the home video release. The full disc specs are attached below and we'll bring you the artwork as soon as we have it:

-1.78:1 Anamorphic Widescreen Presentations
-English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound (THX)
-Original Theatrical Version: (60:44 minutes)
-Extended Version with Unseen Footage (91:44 minutes)
-Reflections From The Deep Documentary
-The ROV Experience (Multi-Angle) Feature

alright, cameron, enough fucking around.  time to get to that next REAL movie!! did anyone actually see this?
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Ghostboy on January 28, 2004, 07:19:04 PM
I did. (http://www.road-dog-productions.com/ghostsoftheabyss.html)
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on February 17, 2004, 12:28:29 AM
James Cameron & Fox Erupt Ghosts of Vesuvius
Source: Variety

20th Century Fox and James Cameron's Fox-based Lightstorm Entertainment have optioned screen rights to Ghosts of Vesuvius, an upcoming HarperCollins book by Charles Pellegrino about the volcanic eruption that leveled Pompeii in 79 A.D. Cameron will produce the epic disaster film with his Lightstorm partners Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini.

Cameron will wait before deciding whether he will direct the fictional look at Pompeii and its destruction that will be culled from Pelligrino's nonfiction book. The volcano eruption that killed so many was estimated to have unleashed a lethal blast several times more powerful than the atomic bomb that devastated Hiroshima.

Variety says that the Lightstorm trio will sift through the book to create a fictionalized account, which likely will tie into the politics of Rome, an empire whose demise may have been hastened by the devastation of Vesuvius.

Cameron has long said he will make his next feature using the 3-D technology he employed in Ghosts of the Abyss, but has not yet said what the film will be. That film is expected to shoot later this year or early next year, and will be his first dramatic feature since Titanic.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on May 06, 2004, 02:23:13 PM
Cameron Readies SF Movies

Director James Cameron told SCI FI Wire that he will begin shooting his ambitious, as-yet-untitled SF movie as soon as this November with the 3-D high-definition video cameras he developed for his Titanic documentary Ghosts of the Abyss. "I'm writing it," Cameron said in an interview at the Saturn Awards ceremony in Los Angeles. "It's very futuristic; [it] takes place in a distant future, and [there's] lots of wild action and amazing characters and, hopefully, a very emotional journey as well. We're setting that up for release ... about this time of the year in 2006, Memorial Day or somewhere around that."

Cameron also reported that he and writer Dario Scardapane (Posse) are refining the script for a proposed remake of the 1966 SF movie Fantastic Voyage. "We have a pretty good script, [but it] still needs to go another iteration," Cameron said. He added that he will find a director for it, but hasn't decided whether it will go forward or not. And he left open the possibility that it, too, could be shot in 3-D, though likely not.

The movie will update the original Raquel Welch SF thriller, about scientists who shrink themselves and are inserted into the bloodstream of an ailing spy. "How do you sell that concept to people?" Cameron said. "For me, the thing in cracking the script, which we've done, was figuring out the social context. Because ... the first film was made in the mid '60s, I think it was '66, and it was a Cold-War-era thriller. And it was about a battle between two superpowers. We're projecting into an age where we're looking at information totalitarianism, where in the pursuit of security in a world of terrorism, people have given up their freedom to an information state. And so, in ours, there are no good guys and bad guys. There are, you know, these two vast blocs: The Coalition and The Alliance. But really, the government is the enemy. So it's a whole different kind of spy thriller than the one in '66."

Cameron added, "The writer is Dario Scardapane. He and I have been working together on that for about a year now. We're not quite there yet. It was a tough nut to crack."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Alethia on May 06, 2004, 03:01:37 PM
what is his obsession with 3D?
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: bonanzataz on May 06, 2004, 07:34:13 PM
it's fucking awesome, that's why! i would LOVE to see a 3d version of fantastic voyage, that would kick all kinds of ass.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Alethia on May 06, 2004, 09:18:41 PM
really?  i havent seen too much by way of 3d, but the 3d in ghosts of the abyss was fuckin distracting as hell.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: El Duderino on May 06, 2004, 09:29:38 PM
i'd like to see 3D Time Bandits
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: mogwai on July 20, 2004, 02:17:15 PM
James Cameron to Produce True Lies sequel

James Cameron's on-again off-again sequel to "True Lies" [1994] is still very much alive, Moviehole has learnt today.

Cameron is currently planning to produce it under his Lightstorm Entertainment and reimagine it more as 'a James Bond type film and not a pre terrorist action film', which after the events of September 11, Cameron decided he definitely didn't want to make.

There's no start date for the film - which will probably feature either Russians or a German Neo Nazi group as villains - but we're told that it may be Arnold Schwarzenegger's first film out of office.

James Cameron won't be directing the film, he'll only produce. No word on whether Tom Arnold or Jamie Lee Curtis are involved, but Arnold Schwarzenegger has already expressed interest apparently.

Schwarzenegger originally said he wouldn't do a Cameron-less "True Lies 2". But he also said he wouldn't do "Terminator 3" without James Cameron either and at the end of the day -money talked and the cyborg rose again.

In "True Lies", Schwarzenegger played Harry Tasker, a super-spy who hides his real job from his wife (Jamie Lee Curtis). The film made quite a nice penny worldwide and was one of the biggest flicks for Schwarzenegger in quite some time. The sequel has been on-again off-again for the best part of five years.

source: moviehole.net
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Ravi on July 20, 2004, 03:43:36 PM
Please let the poster have "2rue Lies" on it...
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on September 10, 2004, 01:44:57 PM
Harrison Ford Slims for 3D Role

Movie star Harrison Ford is in talks to star in James Cameron's new epic - in 3D. Hollywood has so far kept quiet about the project, which will be a science-fiction extravaganza - according to gossip site The Scoop. But Ford is reportedly slimming down for the film, because he fears 3D cameras will make him look fat. According to sources, a technical expert warned him, "If the normal camera adds 10 pounds, think how a 3-D camera can blob you up." The actor, currently involved with actress Calista Flockhart, is expected to film another Indiana Jones film within the next few years as well, if all goes according to plan.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Alethia on September 10, 2004, 03:38:19 PM
echo-o-o-o-o-o-o-o....
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on November 04, 2004, 06:14:03 PM
Source: Digital Bits

A few weeks ago, we mentioned the possibility that Paramount was going to be releasing a new special collector's edition of James Cameron's Titanic in 2005. We have a little bit of new information. The DVD production work on the title will be handled by 20th Century Fox. Word has leaked out of Fox's European operation that the title is expected to be a 4-disc edition, tentatively set for release in the Summer of 2005. This seems to confirm what we've heard from our industry sources - specifically that the studio was considering a 4-disc presentation. However, from what we've heard, production has not yet officially begun on the title (or is only just starting to happen). NOTHING is set in stone about this release yet, and our sources are telling us that a late 2005 (4th Qtr) release at the earliest is more likely. So don't start counting your chickens yet, but if you're a fan, be comforted in knowing that a better DVD version of the film is finally on the radar in a more substantial way.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: mogwai on November 22, 2004, 10:12:59 AM
James Cameron Confirms BATTLE ANGEL As His Next Film!! (Spoilers!!!)

Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...
Finally... straight from the horse's mouth. Yesterday, James Cameron was interviewed on NPR, and you can find the archived interview here (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4176616). If you want to hear him talk about his next film, fast-forward to about 31 minutes into the piece, close to the end.
We've been saying this for months now... maybe longer... but Cameron has confirmed all the details I've written about here on the site. BATTLE ANGEL is the next film, pre-production is underway as they finish up the shooting draft, the main character will be completely created using CG, and the film will be shot in 3-D.
The majority of the interview is about his new film ALIENS OF THE DEEP, and we actually got in a letter from someone who was at the premiere screening of the film, which I'll excerpt here:
... so that's how I ended up seeing a press screening of ALIENS OF THE DEEP on Thursday morning in NY. Thank god for sneaky friends, you know? Overall, I liked the movie a lot, but the 3D is still a little problematic. Cameron mentioned that they are going to redo the main title, so that's not a big deal, but there are some shots in the film that just made my brain hurt. I can name three in particular:

There's this one CG graphic that starts in space and zooms down to the bottom of the ocean that is pretty amazing, and you get a real sense of vertigo as you're zooming past ships until you get underwater. But the 3D is screwed up somehow. If it gets fixed, this'll be an amazing moment.

There's also this very cool winged octopus that just doesn't seem real because of the 3D. It doesn't work right.

And then there's a simple depth perception issue with some of the shots of the people inside the submarines, like we're too close to them. It can get disorienting.

It's not an action movie, obviously. It starts slow and takes its time getting to the main subject, but when you do finally see all the fish and the other crazy underwater creatures and the black smoking chimneys, it's incredible. I'm willing to put up with that weird 3D headache to see such a cool alien environment and such bizarre critters so close you can almost touch them. I think it would help if I had a science background or if I'd done the same amount of research that Cameron obviously has. The brief narration really helps, but I could use more of it. I wasn't sure what was going on sometimes. Cameron's one of those super-smart guys who forgets sometimes that we aren't all as knowledgeable as him.

Also, what's with the obsession on bacteria? It doesn't make sense at times. Cameron says in the film that he thinks it's beautiful, but I'm not sure how it all ties together.

Thanks to our reviewer, and also to NPR for finally getting Cameron to go on the record about BATTLE ANGEL. I've heard he has a firm start date for this summer, so get ready, kids... Cameron's finally coming back!!
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on November 25, 2004, 05:35:09 PM
More info...

'Titanic' Director Spends Time Underwater

Since becoming the king of the world seven years ago with "Titanic," James Cameron has spent much of his time in the underwater world, making 3-D documentaries about his deep-sea explorations.

But the director is finally coming up for air and returning to science fiction with "Battle Angel," a three-dimensional movie set in the 26th century.

Cameron, who also directed "Aliens" and the first two "Terminator" movies, told The Associated Press he's in preproduction now and expects to start shooting in May or June. The film will take two years to make and will include about 1,500 visual effects shots.

"It's based on a series of graphic novels done by a Japanese artist called Kishiro," said the 50-year-old, whose "Titanic" won 11 Academy Awards including best picture and best director, and is the highest-grossing film of all time.

He wouldn't discuss casting for the movie, but said, "It's going to be a combination of live action and (computer graphics) but done photorealistically. There will be CG characters and live-action characters."

He plans to use updated versions of the three-dimensional cameras he used to shoot last year's "Ghosts of the Abyss," his IMAX movie about diving to the real Titanic wreckage, and the upcoming "Aliens of the Deep," another IMAX documentary about underwater exploration for which he worked with NASA scientists.

"We were originally going to release it in '06. We decided to wait 'til '07 because we're trying to ride the impending wave of digital cinema," Cameron said. "The digital cinema projectors are 3-D compatible based on the way that we want to do the 3-D display, and 35mm projectors are not. So we'll release the film in both 2-D and 3-D theaters."

At that point, though, you'll still have to wear those dorky red-and-blue cardboard glasses to experience the 3-D visual effects.

"Oh yeah," he said. "No 3-D without glasses."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Stefen on November 25, 2004, 05:39:02 PM
I watched the trailer of aliens of the deep and it looks amazing. Definetely looking forward to it.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on November 29, 2004, 01:58:22 AM
Stevens on 'Dive' for Cameron, Fox

"For Love of the Game" scribe Dana Stevens has signed on to adapt "The Dive" for James Cameron and 20th Century Fox. Cameron is expected to direct the feature, which is based on the true-life love story between free divers Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras and his wife, Audrey Mestre. Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment acquired Ferreras' life rights, along with a cover story from Sports Illustrated on the diver. Cameron is producing with his Lightstorm partners Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini. "Our intention is that James will be directing another feature next year," Landau said. " 'The Dive' will hopefully be the follow-up project to that." Another project in the works at Lightstorm is "Battle Angel," based on the manga comic "Battle Angel Alita." Stevens' other credits include "Blink," "City of Angels" and "Life or Something Like It."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on January 10, 2005, 02:39:17 PM
James Cameron on Battle Angel!
Source: ComingSoon.net January 10, 2005


Titanic director James Cameron, whose new IMAX film Aliens of the Deep opens January 28, talked to ComingSoon.net about his next project, the big screen adapation of Yukito Kishiro's anime comic Battle Angel Alita.

Can you describe the genesis of the project?
Cameron: A few years ago I started down this path of creating this 3D camera system and once I started working in that, I couldn't imagine myself going back and shooting with the camera that I used before. It just seemed like going back from a car to a bicycle, and I don't want to ride a bicycle again, so the question is, at what point can I use the kind of imaging that we're able to do now for a feature film? That's taken a few years to put together and the pacing item on that is digital cinema, the changeover to d-cinema, which is going to be happening throughout North America and eventually Europe and so-on, where they are literally going to replace every projector in North America in the next five or six years, however long it takes, because in order to display the stereo, the 3D, you need to have those digital projectors. I need those theaters, so I've sort of been waiting until the right moment to make a big movie and we believe that moment is now. So we're in pre-production now on a movie called Battle Angel, which is based on a Japanese Manga series of graphic novels by an artist named Yukito Kishiro. It's not in the sort of top ten of graphic novels in Japan; it's a lesser known one, and we're going to make Battle Angel over the next couple of years and release it in '07. By early summer of '07, we expect to have somewhere around a thousand digital 3D theaters that will be able to show an image that looks more or less like what you saw in the IMAX theater but the IMAX theater was film, and this is going to be digital projection.

This will be shown in multiplexes?:
Cameron: Multiplexes everywhere. All cities, all territories. And yeah, you'll wear glasses, obviously.

Which timeline do you intend to focus on?
Cameron: It's a bit of a mélange of the first three books, which means that it pulls forward the motorball story into the Ido, Alita, Hugo story, if you will.


Will it be live action?
Cameron: Live action and CG mixed, meaning we will build sets, we'll shoot with actors and we'll have CG characters. Alita will be CG; she'll be performed by an actress but what you see in the film will be CG.

Like Gollum?
Cameron: That's a very good example.

Do you have any casting choices?
Cameron: No. We have some stuff we're working on, but it's kind of premature to talk about it.

Marquee names or just unknowns?
Cameron: They won't be unknown. They'll be very recognizable names, but I don't see this as a star vehicle per se.

Is this the future of cinema?
Cameron: Uh, TBD. I don't know yet. It's the future of cinema for me, if I can make this work with these digital theaters. The next time we shoot, we're going to use the new generation of the camera system, which is the new Sony SR compression, so it's inherently got a little more dynamic range and a little better resolution, and we'll do the Lowry processing, or Lowry-type processing on top of it, so we think we're getting to a level where we're basically the equivalent of capturing two side-by-side 4K images, and that's like so much more information than you need. It really allows us for a theatrical feature, I could blow the image up double and still have more resolution than a 35mm film.

With all of your opportunities is filmmaking for yourself more than an audience?
Cameron: If I'm making a feature film like when I'm doing Battle Angel or some of the other projects I have planned for after Battle Angel, I know I'm making a film for an audience. I can't just please myself.

What is the basic plot of Battle Angel?
Cameron: 26th century, the story takes place 300 years after a societal collapse caused by a major war, but in that society, it's a technological dark age following a pinnacle of achievement far, far beyond where we are right now. So in a sense it's post-apocalyptic, but it's post-apocalyptic from a very high level. So now, you've got cyborg technology as just a way of life. People are augmented a lot as workers and so on, so being a cyborg is not unusual. The main character is a cyborg. She has an organic human brain, and she looks like she's about fourteen years old. She has a completely artificial body and she's lost her memory- she's found in this wreckage and she's reconstituted by this guy who is a cyber-surgeon who becomes her kind of surrogate father. It's a father-daughter relationship story that just has the most insane action that you can imagine. It will be PG-13 -- lots of blood, but it's all blue."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: soixante on January 10, 2005, 03:05:20 PM
A recent issue of Wired features James Cameron on the cover, and he wrote an article about deep-sea diving which is fascinating.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: pete on January 10, 2005, 03:36:11 PM
battle angel is extremely graphically violent, with a really melancholy storyline and some cool fights.  I hope at least two out of those three elements will be in cameron's film.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Sal on January 10, 2005, 09:05:22 PM
Quote from: soixanteA recent issue of Wired features James Cameron on the cover, and he wrote an article about deep-sea diving which is fascinating.

He also has a cool NPR.ORG interview that expands on the article.   I don't know if it's still available at the website but it's nice to hear him talk about the recent adventures he's been on as well as the bit of info on Battle Angel.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on January 21, 2005, 03:09:10 PM
FEATURE - King of the 3-D World
Filmmaker James Cameron talks about his new IMAX documentary, his 2007 feature Battle Angel and a 3-D revolution that has only just begun. Source: FilmStew.com

Six years ago, James Cameron bounded onto the stage at the Oscars and crowed, ‘I'm king of the world!’ It was the flip side of Sally Field’s previous ‘You like me, you really, really like me.’ In this case, Cameron didn’t care whether we liked him or not. He was claiming the prize as his rightful possession.

Today, the memory of Titanic’s box office records has dimmed somewhat in the shadow of the gargantuan success of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings run. Although Cameron’s film is still the number one domestic and international hit of all-time, the Rings trilogy when combined leaves the tale of Jack Dawson in its wake.

So what has Cameron got up his sleeve for the near future, after surprising Hollywood and his fans with the documentaries Expedition: Bismarck, Ghosts of the Abyss and now Aliens of the Deep, a 3-D immersion into deep ocean life that opens in IMAX theaters on January 28th? As the rangy blond auteur told FilmStew during a recent interview, it all has to do with a forward-looking slice of 26th century fiction.

"The prevalent theory [in Hollywood] is you make this big film, you have all this success, but you're afraid of success and don't want to continue," says the 50-year-old Canadian born filmmaker, who makes no apologies for enjoying the recent freedom to pursue personal projects. But, he admits, "Now I have a languishing theatrical film production company and a thriving documentary film company."

The same 3D technology in evidence in Aliens from the Deep permeates Cameron’s current CGI pre-production work on Battle Angel, the story of a 14-year-old female cyborg with a human brain and a completely synthetic body. "She has all the wild emotions of an adolescent in a destroyer body. It's a great metaphor for being a parent," explains Cameron with a laugh.

"It's a very complex story with lots of incredible visuals,” he continues. “The thing that attracts me to it is that every eight-year-old in the world will get exactly what's cool about this film, but there's enough complexity, nuance, symbolism, and all that stuff to keep us old farts interested, keep me interested for a couple of years, as well."

Characters and environments for Battle Angel have been designed, and Cameron expects to begin on-set photography this May or June. He also plans to follow an unusual production model, a start/stop process in which he will complete some photography, follow that with more CG work, followed by more photography, and so on.

It’s a good thing Cameron appears so excited about his return to fiction; the 20th Century Fox project will need to hold his attention through a planned release date of May, 2007. The advantage to this long lead time is that by then, Cameron figures technology will have caught up to him. He fully expects that by then theaters everywhere will be converting to digital projection.

"We're interested in taking some of those digital cinemas and turning them into digital 3-D cinemas,” he reveals. “The uptick to do that in price is not that great once you are investing in the underlying digital cinemas. So we have a way of taking all of the stuff that we're shooting now, feature film projects, fictional stories, and so on and showing them to a much wider audience."

Cameron’s recent interest in science and the ocean is hardly surprising, given a resume that includes, in addition to Titanic and his recent documentaries, the nautical adventure The Abyss and the sci-fi thrillers Aliens, Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. In fact, Cameron made his filmmaking debut with 1978’s Xenogenesis, a short about explorers searching space for a place to re-ignite the cycle of creation.

What propels Cameron is a lifelong fascination with the aquatic and with outer space. As a child, he says he loved oceanographer Jacques Cousteau's nature documentaries and pretty much any science-fiction. Growing up near Niagara Falls, he begged his father at age 16 for scuba diving lessons, even though the family lived nowhere near the ocean.

"I learned to scuba dive in a pool," Cameron recalls. "It wasn't until I moved to California that I ever even scuba dived in the ocean. But I just loved it. I loved this idea that there was this alien atmosphere right here on planet earth. I knew that I was never going to be an astronaut and visit another star system or land on another planet, but I knew I could explore an alien world right here."

Aliens of the Deep began as outgrowth of Expedition: Bismarck, when Cameron decided to stay on board the Russian ship that served as Bismarck's base of operations after the film wrapped. The vessel's scientists were on their way to hydrothermal vent sites at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean to study the life that somehow thrives in the dark recesses of the deep.

Cameron is the first to admit that for all of his experience diving, most of it has been to shipwrecks. He had never dived in the pursuit of scientific inquiry. That is until a friend on the ship, Dr. Anatoly Sagalevitch, who was in charge of the Russians' manned submersible institute and who played a small role in Titanic, challenged his pal.

"He said, ‘You know, you're always doing these films about ships, but where's the reality? Where's the science?’" remembers Cameron. It was a dare that filmmaker could not resist as he spent another month and a half on the ship with a two-man crew, paying for seeds of the new production out of his own pocket. Diving down in submersibles, small manned submarines, he filmed the geology of the ocean floor and the many surprising animals – blind albino shrimps and crabs, strange octopi, elongated red worms – that live there.

"I fell in love with these amazing, amazing environments,” he enthuses. “It was really the childhood fantasy of getting to go to an alien planet turned real."

“Here it was, just the most incredible geology you could imagine, these sheer cliffs that went up three or four hundred feet, these underwater volcanoes, these incredible animals,” he adds. “I thought, 'I have to make a film about this.'"

Cameron set about putting together a "cast," not just of marine biologists, but also NASA scientists investigating a possible relationship between this odd undersea life and the extraterrestrial life they theorize may exist and that space exploration may someday uncover. Aliens of the Deep is also a family affair, as Cameron is joined by his brothers - Dave, who ran deck operations and maintained the submersible craft, and Mike, a former aerospace engineer who now uses his skills in deep ocean engineering. It was Mike who built and maintained the small robotic vehicles that Cameron used to get cameras into spaces where the larger submersibles could not fit.

Always an innovator, like his buddy to the north George Lucas, Cameron squared off against the current limitations of IMAX’s 3-D technology and developed a lightweight digital 3-D system, dubbed the Reality Camera System, which allows him to shoot for hours at a stretch. "We have to take people along," he says of his aim to replicate the sensory experience of actually being submersed deep in the ocean.

Cameron’s pioneering approach has already won Aliens of the Deep at least one high-profile fan - astronaut Buzz Aldrin. After Cameron screened the film for Aldrin at Pasadena’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the space explorer stood up and exclaimed, ‘It's so great that young people get to see this type of imagery coming from right here on our planet. It’s so mind blowing and can get them excited about the idea of exploration.’

Adds Cameron : "It was very gratifying, but really that was our goal: to get people excited."

Although he's been away from feature filmmaking for the better part of a decade, Cameron admits he has kept a finger on Hollywood's pulse. "I keep looking for something out there that inspires me in the type of filmmaking that I like to do," he says, acknowledging Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings trilogy are the movies he has seen most recently that fit that description. "I thought they were just absolutely beautiful, such a major accomplishment, such a magnum opus."

Recently, Cameron dealt with Jackson when the latter briefly contemplated making his King Kong remake using Cameron's system 3-D system. The New Zealand genius’s flirtation with 3-D does not surprise Cameron, as he anticipates it is the direction the medium will soon take.

"I think that the audiences are going to get really excited about what they can go to a cinema and experience, versus right now," he predicts. With Battle Angel, he hopes to fuse story, emotion and visual effects on a grander scale than what he attempted with Titanic. With perhaps a documentary or two thrown in here or there over the next few years for good measure.

"I'll just weave back and forth between the two,” he says. “If I'm blessed enough to be able to continue doing this for a while, I will."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on May 17, 2005, 07:13:42 PM
True Lies 2 Still Alive!
Cameron and the Guv-nah re-team for more Lies.
 
Variety reports that California Gov-nah Arnold Schwarzenegger is already making plans for his first post-term role in a sequel to the 1994 smash hit True Lies.

James Cameron had originally expressed interest in returning to the project only as producer, but is reportedly now planning to direct True Lies 2 after Arnold finishes his term as Governor. The project will fall under Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and is being described as "A James Bond type film and not a pre terrorist action film."

Cameron would like to re-team True Lies cast members Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold and Bill Paxton with Schwarzenegger, but no casting has been finalized as of yet.

Schwarzenegger has reportedly expressed interest as well.

FilmForce spoke with Schwarzenegger about True Lies 2 a few years ago, but it's unclear at this point whether this take on the sequel will have a connection to the draft the Governor was referring to. June 27th, 2003: "The script is written, but as you know, after 9/11 happened, Cameron was worried because there's an airplane scene - a terrific airplane scene - that didn't have anything to do with the terrorism that we had in 9/11, but it was a great fight scene inside the plane while the plane goes down and this kind of thing. It was a very important moment in the movie, and he felt like he can't do that and therefore has to rewrite it... These things take a long time."
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on June 14, 2005, 12:11:20 AM
Cameron turns to new project
Source: Hollywood Reporter

As the clock ticks down toward the December start date of James Cameron's next project, the director is shifting his full attention from "Battle Angel." Although he has publicly identified that film as his next movie, he also is readying a parallel project, tentatively titled "Project 880," according to sources at Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment.

Both films would be shot in 3-D with custom-designed high-definition cameras. Whichever film Cameron does next, he also plans to use a photo-real version of the performance capture technology used by Robert Zemeckis on "The Polar Express."

Seven years after "Titanic" took the all-time global boxoffice crown ($1.8 billion), the 50-year-old writer-director had said that he plans to return to directing with a big-budget studio picture for 20th Century Fox after producing TV and movie projects ("Dark Angel," "Solaris") and experimenting with 3-D Imax documentaries.

Cameron had focused much of his attention on "Battle Angel," based on Yukito Kishiro's 12 popular Japanese graphic novels about a nymphette who morphs into an action heroine. Cameron has reworked a script from "Alexander" screenwriter Laeta Kalogridis that could serve as the beginning of a franchise.

While Lightstorm would not reveal a final title or story line for the new project it is calling "Project 880," Cameron could decide to film that feature before tackling "Battle Angel," which has proved to be a difficult script to adapt.

Cameron also has been developing an underwater adventure, "The Dive," with screenwriter Dana Stevens ("City of Angels"). That project is based on a Sports Illustrated story about freedivers Francisco Ferreras and his wife Audrey Mestre, who expired while trying to break her own depth record. Rights have only recently been disentangled and because that script is not ready, it is not one of the two projects Cameron is readying, Lightstorm said.

Eager to use the latest technology toolbox on his next film, which will be effects intensive, Cameron has had a team of technicians working behind-the-scenes to build customized solutions that will enable the director to bring his visions to the big screen.

Working from scratch, "Titanic" visual effects supervisor Rob Legato is building a prototype virtual cinematography system for previsualization on Cameron's next project. The system that Legato is building will allow Cameron such freedoms as choosing lenses, framing, Steadicam, dolly, pan and tilt, focal lengths and other camera controls during the previsualization stage rather than on location. The frame-by-frame setup will allow Cameron to envision the entire film in a computer before he shoots a single frame of the live-action, performance-capture material. Legato also is helping Lightstorm configure a visual-effects "pipeline" to get a new system up and running within weeks. Cameron is scheduled to screen Legato's test footage Wednesday.Cameron also is expected to start CamNet, a new camera distribution business with his longtime camera technician Vincent Pace, who recently customized a Sony HDCAM SR F-950 unit by detaching the optical block from the camera body and adding a wireless accessory for motion and lens control, thereby allowing remote-control wireless HD lensing via a fiber link from up to 10 miles away. This camera system would allow camera crews to remain above water during deep sea shoots.

With the latest innovations in motion capture, Cameron also will be able to film actors on dry land as they play characters underwater. Just as Tom Hanks was able to body surf an a fast-moving train in Sony Imageworks' "Polar Express," actors will be able to explore the depths of the ocean from the safety of a motion capture stage.

Legato contributed innovative visual effects work to Martin Scorsese's "The Aviator," for which he shot second-unit visual effects photography, and "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone." Legato supervised both films at Imageworks, which he left this year to work as an independent with plans to direct. Lightstorm execs are interviewing visual effects supervisors to whom Legato is expected to hand over the previsual system he has developed under heavy security. Brooke Breton, "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow" effects producer, is said to be a strong candidate.

Intrigued by 3-D technology ever since he made 1996's "T-2 3-D: Battle Across Time," a 12-minute short for the Universal Studios theme parks, Cameron conducted research and development for the new film's technology, while making two 3-D Imax documentaries, 2003's "Ghosts of the Abyss" and this year's "Aliens of the Deep."

Having declared that he "will never shoot on film again," Cameron will deploy the same side-by-side, 3-D high-definition video Sony cameras that he used on "Ghosts of the Abyss" on his upcoming feature, Lightstorm sources said. Cameron also hopes to release his next film in 1,000 theaters equipped with digital projectors.

Cameron, George Lucas, Robert Rodriguez and Robert Zemeckis made strong pitches at March's ShoWest exhibitor convention for exhibitors to install 3-D digital projectors to support their upcoming 3-D projects, including planned 3-D versions of the "Star Wars" films.

Rodriguez used Cameron's specially-adapted hand-held Sony F-950 cameras (or "J-cams") for "Spy Kids 3-D," but Rodriguez adopted the old-fashioned red and blue anaglyphic 3-D format in postproduction, which is slightly more antiquated than Cameron's digital 3-D HD capture method.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on July 14, 2005, 05:21:19 PM
Arnold Insists on True Lies 2
Says it'll happen. But when?
 
Actor-comedian Tom Arnold insists that True Lies 2, the follow-up to James Cameron's 1994 comedy-actioner, is still going to be made. Star Mag and Dark Horizons quote Arnold as saying that he met with Cameron, Jamie Lee Curtis, Bill Paxton, and Eliza Dushku about the film last month.

"We're doing it," said Arnold. "Definitely doing it. I'm revved. Unlike Terminator (4), which I think they're doing without Arnold, Jim's prepared to wait for the big guy. So am I. I've been waiting for ten years now – I'm sure I can hang on a few more months."

While Arnold's excitement is encouraging, his math skills seem to be lacking. If Cameron is indeed planning to shoot True Lies 2 with Schwarzenegger – as this earlier report suggests, they'll be waiting at least until January of 2007, which is when the Governator's term expires. That's a bit longer away than "a few months".

That's also assuming Schwarzenegger doesn't run for re-election. California governors may be elected to two terms, in which case the Austrian-born actor might not be available until 2011. One factor favoring Schwarzenegger's return to acting, however, might be his current low approval ratings as governor.

So will there be a True Lies 2 in December of 2007? We'll just have to wait and see, for now.
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on July 14, 2005, 05:42:17 PM
ha, thats terrible.

1. i thought Arnold was Schwarzenegger

and 2. "i've been waiting for 10 years".  dude, live your life.  its True Lies!
Title: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Sleuth on July 14, 2005, 05:54:04 PM
how come he doesn't host the BEst Damn Sports Show Period anymore?
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on December 07, 2005, 12:10:09 AM
Cameron ready for 'Battle'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

James Cameron is moving forward on his next helming project, the sci-fi thriller "Battle Angel" for 20th Century Fox. The film marks the director's long-anticipated follow-up to "Titanic," which Fox co-financed with Paramount Pictures.

Fox declined comment and would not confirm that the project has been greenlighted, but Mali Finn Casting has placed an open casting call online for the lead actress in the new Cameron film.

The ad calls for female applicants age 16 to mid-20s who are athletic and agile with graceful movement and have an ear for languages and dialects. Submissions are due Dec. 19, the firm said.

"Battle Angel" is described as a big-budget adaptation of a 12-part Japanese manga series set in the 26th century that centers on 14-year-old female cyborg named Alita.

Fox's Emma Watts will shepherd the project for the studio, with production scheduled to begin in February.

Cameron has said publicly that he is planning to direct two movies back to back using a virtual-reality production process he refined and developed with visual effects cameraman and second unit director Rob Legato. The process is based on a photo-real version of the performance-capture technology used by Robert Zemeckis in "The Polar Express."

"Battle Angel" is the first project to employ the process and is set to come out in summer 2007. The second -- known in Cameron circles as "Project 880" -- is slated for 2009, the director has said.

Early last month, Fox executives visited a Los Angeles stage set up by Cameron's company, Lightstorm Entertainment, to view his proof-of-concept. They reviewed the director's latest digital-production process that includes 3-D high-definition digital-camera systems in a virtual production studio, allowing Cameron to make camera choices, edit, work with CG objects and direct actors on a stage within a virtual environment.

The frame-by-frame production setup allows Cameron to envision the entire film digitally before he shoots actors in live-action, performance-capture material.

Cameron demonstrated a real-world test of the technique on the stage to show the infinite digital production possibilities the system enables. The director had worked to debug and refine the system since early spring to get it to finished quality before demonstrating it to studio execs.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: ©brad on February 05, 2006, 12:24:06 PM
geeez, will this bastard make up his mind already?
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on February 05, 2006, 01:47:00 PM
yes he is one of my favorite directors and it's been soooo long since he kicked serious ass.  so i dont care what his next movie is, as long as it's not a documentary or a Terminator sequel. 
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Fernando on February 07, 2006, 10:31:35 AM
AICN int. James Cameron.

QUINT: I'm a big fan of your feature work, but I have to say that everything I love about your films... the pushing of the technology, your passion for the story and the material I have found in your documentary work as well.

CAMERON: I'm kinda glad you saw that. In GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS we didn't really bring the style that you'd have on a feature 'cause that wasn't our brief. We were trying to make it natural. You know, just whatever happened happened. No second takes, no lighting, nothin'.
On ALIENS OF THE DEEP I said, "We're going to make this one a little more cinematic, we're going to contour this a little more. We're not going to make anything up that didn't happen, but we're going to do some lighting, we're going to make it feel a little more movie-like." That was just a conscious decision.

QUINT: Was that to benefit the IMAX 3-D experience...

CAMERON: It was... It was just sorta what we wanted to do because I was working with the same crew and we'd had this experience on GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS that we had been so rigorous about not imposing ourselves creatively on the expedition that we wound up with 1300 hours of footage to make a 60 minute movie. That was crazy. We had 300 hours just of 3-D and the other 1000 hours was all the sub interior multi-cam... they were all standard-def video images, but still... it was just hours and hours and hours of stuff.
So, we said, "Alright. We can't do this." Because it just doesn't service because out of all that time you still don't have that person saying that thing you needed to say. So, the way we work now is I say, "Okay... You're the expert, you put it however you want, but you know what we're trying to say here. Put it in some concise way that I can put in the movie..."

QUINT: To try to get some sort of structure...

CAMERON: You just got to structure the moment a little bit more. What I found out is... that's what everybody does. (laughs) I had this idea of what a documentary was and it was wrong. It was surveillance. We were doing surveillance.
Now, there's some beauty in it because when things happen... We were out filming the Titanic (for GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS) when September 11th happened and I just walked around with the camera and talked to people afterwards... in 3-D and blew it up to IMAX. There's a moment where a friend of mine, Lewis Abernathy, on the expedition... he just went off. He just started talking. It was beautiful. I wish I could have put it all in the film.
You can't make that up. I couldn't have written that down ahead of time. That was just a moment.
There's something that's really intoxicating about the documentary process when something does happen, when it does line up in front of the lens and you're like, "That's incredible!"

QUINT: And you were the one to capture it...

CAMERON: Yeah, yeah! Or even if the other guys get it... One of my favorite shots in GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS is when we're getting slammed by the storm and we can't get the sub out of the water and we're just getting trashed. I was in the sub, I wasn't even shooting!
I had briefed everybody ahead of time... we had this big plan. What we said was if anything ever goes wrong on the expedition... wrong, wrong, wrong... people dying, blood on the deck... I don't care what it is, you shoot it. I don't care what it is, you shoot it. As long as you're not interfering with emergency operations or if by shooting you're not helping in the situation... But if there's a legitimate case to be made that you're not in the way and they don't need you... shoot it!
So, when September 11th happened, we just shot it. It was pretty amazing. Here we are shooting IMAX off the shoulder, which had never been done before. Shooting hours and hours and hours because it was all HD.

QUINT: I remember seeing the behind the scenes on T2:3-D with the old IMAX 3-D cameras you used and just how gargantuan they were...

CAMERON: Yeah, the beam-splitter rig... the size of a refrigerator. I wanted to make a 3-D film, but I didn't want to have to use that gear again. I said, "Why can't we use HD?" They said, "Well, HD won't blow up to IMAX." I said, "Yeah, but maybe two HD pictures overlaid with each other will blow up to something that looks a lot like IMAX." They thought I was nuts.
We went to Tokyo, got Sony to work with us... They built these special camera heads for us that we incorporated into our 3-D system. We built the system... you know, it cost millions of dollars to build this camera system, but it works perfectly. It's state of the art.
And now the projection is coming along, too. Now you can shoot it and slam it straight into a digital theater. I can do live 3-D. I can do live 3-D that looks exactly like ALIENS OF THE DEEP... Live!

QUINT: I was on the set of SPY KIDS 3-D and Rodriguez had a set-up there where you can see the 3-D live... to the point where he had a display that you could watch in between takes and see the crew setting up the next scene... in 3-D... as it was happening!

CAMERON: That's a version of our cameras, yeah. Did he use goggles or did he use the monitor for the 3-D imaging?

QUINT: I had to wear a pair of polarized glasses to see it...

CAMERON: Yeah, yeah. Well, Robert is actually a 3-D pioneer... Now, hopefully, before he does another 3-D movie or when he does his next 3-D movie he'll do it for digital release and not the anaglyph, 'cause I hate the anaglyph. I think it's a real set-back because it gives people headaches. If you're over 10 years old you can't watch it.

QUINT: Yeah, the polarized on the set was amazing, but the red and blue in the theater...

CAMERON: Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. It's gotta be polarized. But the new digital 3-D with polarization, with digital projectors, is phenomenal.

QUINT: I saw the digital 3-D projection with CHICKEN LITTLE.

CAMERON: CHICKEN LITTLE had perfect projection. The movie was retrofitted to 3-D, so I think of it as 2 3/4-D. It wasn't quite... not because they weren't doing good stereo... By the way, I'll call it stereo instead of 3-D because 3-D has been co-opted by the CG world. Stereoscopicy, stereographics, stereo. CHICKEN LITTLE had perfect stereo, but the movie was not conceived as a 3-D film, so it didn't kind of have that "Umph!"

QUINT: At this very moment on this very day... where do you feel pulled the most strongly? To keep advancing technology? To keep exploring? To tell a feature story? Or is it sort of a combination of all that?

CAMERON: I think the time is right, right now, for me to go back to narrative filmmaking, which is what I'm doing. The reason is I've spent the last 5 years, first of all, having some great adventures, really kind of learning the documentary trade and building up a documentary company which can now function on its own to a certain extent, so I'm now allowed to do it.
But also I get to take all the tools that we've built over the last 3 years, in terms of digital filmmaking, HD, stereo, fiber optics... all the tools that we've built for ourselves for these documentary shows I now bring to the feature. So, I'm really anxious to take everything I've learned in the stereo world and apply it to a feature and that's what we're doing right now.
I can't think of anything that I see on a screen these days without thinking how much better it'd look in 3-D! If I see a movie I really like... Like, I'm watching KING KONG I think, "Man! That'd be great in 3-D!" Everything's better in 3-D! Everything! A scene in the snow with two people talking... in 3-D... It's amazing! You're in the snow! You feel the snow.

QUINT: In CHICKEN LITTLE, the 3-D that I tended to like the most was the simple stuff... like a shot of Chicken Little in the back seat and his dad in the front seat and just really seeing that depth... It wasn't, like, COMIN' AT YA! 3-D...

CAMERON: Yeah! You're in the car. You're in the car with those guys. It shouldn't be about COMIN' AT YA! 3-D, it shouldn't be about getting poked in the eye all the time. That's the abusive 3-D that I think filmmakers had to go through to get to the stage where we are right now where we think of it instead of something coming out at you all the time, it's a window into a reality. You're sharing that reality or you're able to look into that reality.

QUINT: I'm resigned to the fact that you're going to keep a lid on PROJECT 880...

CAMERON: Good. That saves us time.

QUINT: But I'm curious why the secrecy...

CAMERON: Why the secrecy? Um... People tend to dissect movies without seeing them and to me that spoils the magic. Now, having said that, we'll tell everybody what we're doing eventually.

QUINT: Do you have any idea when?

CAMERON: I'm thinking March.

QUINT: Yeah? Very soon, then.

CAMERON: Pretty soon, pretty soon. We've been working on this film for 6 months. (laughs) I'm kinda surprised no one knows what we're doing!

QUINT: Can we go over a couple projects real quick? I'd like to bring up something that doesn't get really get brought up much, a film you were working on with Guillermo Del Toro called COFFIN...

CAMERON: Yeah... Well, COFFIN is not... Look, here's where we are. I've changed the nature of my company. I'm now not developing movies for other directors. I've got 4 films teed up right now that are either in a good treatment or a good shooting draft form for me to do over the next 5 years. I'm teed up. I'm in for longer than 5 years, so I don't need a development staff right now. I just need a little core team, like my documentary team, except on the feature side to just go out and nail these films, one after another. That's going to be the game plan. So, we changed the company and a lot of people left the company as a result.
What I've said is there are only a couple of projects that I will continue to be involved with that we did develop and COFFIN is one of them. The reason for that is because Guillermo del Toro is one of my best friends and we've never really worked together. I mean, we always feel like we're working together because he gets all involved in my stuff, I get all involved with his stuff, but not in an official capacity.
So, COFFIN is definitely not dead and Guillermo says he still wants to make it. He's just finishing up his Spanish film right now.

QUINT: Yeah, PAN'S LABYRINTH. It looks great, I can't wait to see it.

CAMERON: Yeah, it's a pretty cool film. I've seen it.

QUINT: I remember before Paul W.S. Anderson did ALIEN VS PREDATOR it came out that you kind of made an offer to do another
ALIEN film with Ridley Scott...

CAMERON: Yeah. Ridley and I talked about doing another ALIEN film and I said to 20th Century Fox that I would develop a 5th ALIEN film. I started working on a story, I was working with another writer and Fox came back to me and said, "We've got this really good script for ALIEN VS PREDATOR and I got pretty upset. I said, "You do that you're going to kill the validity of the franchise in my mind." Because to me, that was FRANKENSTEIN MEETS WEREWOLF. It was Universal just taking their assets and starting to play them off against each other.

QUINT: Milking it, totally.

CAMERON: Milking it. So, I stopped work. Then I saw ALIEN VS PREDATOR and it was actually pretty good. (laughs) I think of the 5 ALIEN films, I'd rate it 3rd.

QUINT: Ummm...

CAMERON: I actually liked it. I actually liked it a lot.

QUINT: You know, I hate it when movies don't abide by the continuity of their series...

CAMERON: When they make up their own rules.

QUINT: Exactly. They did that a lot with the alien incubation time, where from egg to chestbuster it happened...

CAMERON: In minutes, yeah...

QUINT: That kind of stuff really pissed me off with the movie...

CAMERON: Well, it starts to become a video game. It's like, "Okay, that can be in him and that can show up over here..." It becomes more metaphorical or more comic book. I don't mean comic book in a negative way, I just mean that it's working at a kind of mythic, metaphoric level as opposed to really trying to immerse you in reality.
I mean, I felt when I was making ALIENS I think the same thing Ridley was doing with ALIEN, which is... "I'm going to make you think this is real." Even though it is completely ridiculous deep space adventure. We were going to make you feel like it's real. It's a question of does the film take itself seriously or not.

KRAKEN: So you still thinking about doing something with it?

CAMERON: No.

KRAKEN: If we promised you our first babies would you think about doing anything with it?

CAMERON: (laughs) Well, the other thing I've learned is that when you deal with a studio and it's their asset... it's their asset. And I should have learned that lesson with PLANET OF THE APES because I had a great... great idea with PLANET OF THE APES, but it was Fox's asset. Even though I was supposedly developing it we didn't see eye to eye and they sort of picked up their marbles and that was that. They turned out, I think, possibly the most egregious film that they could have on that subject because they miscast the director. It's the only Tim Burton film that I don't like.

QUINT: Yeah and it's just frustrating because you can see stuff in there that's great, like Tim Roth's performance, but the movie just falls flat.

CAMERON: He's stunning!

QUINT: What's your favorite dirty joke?

CAMERON: (laughs)

QUINT: I got one from Clooney so I'm hoping to dig one out of you... And I know you've been around sailors, so I know you have some!

CAMERON: Favorite dirty joke? Aw, man. I don't know if I want to go there. Clooney doesn't have any kids! (laughs) I think I'm gonna pass on that one!

Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: w/o horse on February 07, 2006, 03:47:31 PM
You know I've never really thought about if I like Cameron or not, but after reading that interview, I like the guy.  He seems to have a genuine passion for film, and that he can appreciate AvP is neat.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: jigzaw on February 25, 2006, 04:35:05 PM
I'm also eagerly awaiting Cameron's next movie.  Actually, his comments about AvP are the only reason I want to check it out now.  It can't be worse than Alien Resurrection, can it?
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on February 25, 2006, 04:44:53 PM
Quote from: jigzaw on February 25, 2006, 04:35:05 PMActually, his comments about AvP are the only reason I want to check it out now. It can't be worse than Alien Resurrection, can it?

Yes. It can. It makes Resurrection look like Citizen Kane. Cameron must have been suffering from the Bends when he watched it.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on February 25, 2006, 05:10:50 PM
truly.  he also liked the abominable T3, so he has been smoking some billionaire crack in the last 9 years.  lets hope it wears off before his next movie.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: jigzaw on February 25, 2006, 05:18:11 PM
Yeah, I couldn't stand T3 either.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: takitani on February 27, 2006, 08:24:40 PM
QuoteCameron Takes Kalogridis for a Dive
Source: Variety February 27, 2006


James Cameron has tapped Laeta Kalogridis, who is co-writing Battle Angel with him, to write The Dive, the true, tragic love story of freediver Francisco "Pipin" Ferraras and his wife Audrey Mestre.

Variety says he plans to direct the film for 20th Century Fox and Lightstorm Entertainment.

The Dive won't be the next directing effort for Cameron, who hasn't helmed a feature since the 1997 Oscar-winning Titanic. Instead, he will next direct a film he's calling Project 880, which is speculated to be Avatar.

"Dive," which would begin after that project, will tell the story of two pre-eminent free-divers who, with but a breath of air in their lungs, plunged to unimaginable depths before swimming back to the surface. She died during an attempt to better her world record to 557.7 feet.

Cameron will produce with Lightstorm's Jon Landau and Rae Sanchini.

Cameron used his submersible equipment to film Ferraras when he matched the depth of her fatal dive in Cabo San Lucas, where the couple first met.
http://comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=13360

Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on April 24, 2006, 11:22:02 AM
Cameron: D-cinema is exhibition's salvation
NAB keynoter calls for revolution
By Sheigh Crabtree, Hollywood Reporter

LAS VEGAS -- Boxoffice king James Cameron issued a call to arm theaters with digital cinema and digital 3-D in response to declining cinema receipts and rampant movie piracy during his keynote address Sunday at the National Association of Broadcasters' Digital Cinema Summit.

"We're in a fight for survival here," Cameron told the overflow crowd in the Las Vegas Convention Center. "Maybe we just need to fight back harder, come out blazing, not wither away and die. D-cinema can do it, for a number of reasons, but because d-cinema is an enabling technology for 3-D. Digital 3-D is a revolutionary form of showmanship that is within our grasp. It can get people off their butts and away from their portable devices and get people back in the theaters where they belong."

Cameron also took the occasion of the world's largest annual film and broadcast technology trade show to fire a few shots across the bow of the emerging trend of simultaneous releasing being promoted by 2929 Entertainment's Mark Cuban and "Bubble" director Steven Soderbergh, among others.

"We're so scared of piracy right now that we're ready to pimp out our mothers," Cameron said. "This whole day-and-date DVD release nonsense? Here's an answer: (Digital cinema is) one of the strongest reasons I've been pushing 3-D for the past few years because it offers a powerful experience which you can only have in the movie theater."
 
The director of the highest-grossing film of all time at $1.8 billion worldwide said he is considering a rerelease of 1997's "Titanic" in digital 3-D just as Peter Jackson is planning at some point for "King Kong" and, possibly, his "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. George Lucas also plans to theatrically rerelease his original "Star Wars" in 3-D timed to the space opera's 30th anniversary next year.

With filmmakers and exhibitors united behind the idea of enhanced cinema experiences, Cameron predicted that studios would become even more focused on both releasing new titles and rereleasing classics in 3-D digital cinema.

"We will reach a point in a few years when every major studio will ask how many of its four or five annual tentpoles should be in 3-D," Cameron said. "It will become almost a rule that all major 3-D animated releases will be made available in 3-D.

"Every year there will be a copy of timeless favorites brought back through (3-D) dimensionalization," he said. "The new wave of 3-D films will be the must-see films, the major releases from major filmmakers."

Cameron said that despite industrywide squabbling and fear-based decision-making associated with new technology, and even despite the fact that the major studios haven't cooperated in the past, the digital cinema rollout actually is happening.

"We're halfway through the looking glass," he said. "We're past the point where the fear of change is outweighed by the fear of not changing."

While most people associate 3-D with either animation or projection, Cameron said that there are a variety of stereographic processes that can be introduced while shooting, during postproduction, or after a movie has been archived.

Among the films testing the various 3-D waters are Walden Media and New Line Cinema's "Journey to the Center of the Earth," which is being shot live-action with stereographic cameras; Robert Zemeckis' "Beowulf," which is employing 3-D-animated performance capture; and Walt Disney Feature Animation's computer-animated "Meet the Robinsons," which will be projected in 3-D.

The filmmaker said his interest in digital 3-D goes back to his love of movies and his love of making them for the big screen. "I'm not going to make movies for people to watch on their cell phones. To me, I'd rather go back to doing some more deep-ocean expeditions," Cameron said. "I don't want that grand, visionary, transporting movie experience made for the big screen to become a thing of the past."

Among other points made during his keynote, Cameron called to stamp out any new attempts to make anaglyph 35mm films because it only would confuse the marketplace and undermine the emergence of digital 3-D. He also noted that digital projectors combined with 3-D could be a new way for exhibitors to program live events and charge more for admissions, and he said that there is a proliferation of filmmakers who want to shoot in 3-D because it is a revolutionary form of showmanship, and directors want to create their own individual stereo aesthetics.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on April 24, 2006, 12:00:23 PM
Quote from: MacGuffin on April 24, 2006, 11:22:02 AM
He also noted that digital projectors combined with 3-D could be a new way for exhibitors to... charge more for admissions, and he said that there is a proliferation of filmmakers who want to shoot in 3-D because it is a revolutionary form of showmanship, and directors want to create their own individual stereo aesthetics.
you had me until this, james.  anything that involves me paying more than $11 for a ticket?  count me out.  the theatres need to start earning the amount they're already charging.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on June 30, 2006, 02:07:08 AM
'Titanic' Mastermind James Cameron's King-Size Comeback: Two Sci-Fi Trilogies
Futuristic love story, thriller about 26th-century cyborg in the works.
Source: MTV

ANAHEIM, California — Nearly 10 years ago, he appointed himself the King of the World. Now, after a decade of unrealistic expectations, false starts and geek-fueled rumors, James Cameron is finally ready to reclaim his crown.

"My summer vacation is over," a determined Cameron said this week, signaling an end to his nine-year absence from directing major motion pictures. "It's time to go back to work."

Making a rare public appearance to attend the Disneyland premiere of friend Gore Verbinski's blockbuster "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest," the "Titanic" director looked back on the Leonardo DiCaprio classic that might just be the most high-pressure undertaking ever assumed by a director — until now.

"He's done two films back-to-back," Cameron said of Verbinski, in awe of the simultaneous production of the second and third "Pirates" films. "I have some plans in the future that may work the same way."

The 51-year-old mastermind behind classics like "Aliens" and the first two "Terminator" films added that while he doesn't think Verbinski's double-blockbuster-duty is the gutsiest move in filmmaking history (the box-office success of "Chest" seems all but guaranteed), he does view it as a strategy that should inspire other would-be trilogy filmmakers. "The ballsiest play in history was the 'Lord of the Rings' films, where they shot all three films at the same time," Cameron enthused. "They were betting on success, just blindly: 'Are people going to go see these?' They didn't know. They bet the farm and they won.

"But I think the more logical way to do it is like ['Pirates']," he continued. "When you have a hit film, you want to make two sequels to it. You make them back-to-back, shoot them at the same time, and then do all the special effects; release one, then release the other."

With that in mind, Cameron is finally pulling back the curtain on two would-be trilogies that might define sci-fi filmmaking for the next decade and beyond. "I have two franchises, if you will, or films that play out over an arc of a number of films that I am going to be making," he revealed. "[I won't make them] back-to-back, but one after another. They, in turn, might spawn back-to-back sequels. It all depends on how the first one does."

The first of these films is a long-rumored love story to be set against the backdrop of a planet-hopping future — and has been known by several names. " 'Project 880,' we'll probably release it as 'Avatar,' " he said, mentioning two such aliases. "We haven't locked in on the title yet, but this is what we are calling it. [There will be] possible sequels if it does well; if it tanks, no."

"We're going to do 'Avatar' first, and we're in active pre-production on it right now," he added. "I'm directing it; I'm directing all these films.

"And with 'Battle Angel,' also, we'll do the same thing," Cameron said of his second project, a sci-fi thriller about a female cyborg in the 26th century. " 'Battle Angel' is actually designed as a three-film cycle. So the logic there is to make one and, if it hits, boom-boom on the other two."

"If you want to know more about 'Battle Angel,' you can get the graphic novels," the director said of his source material. "There's a series of 10 graphic novels, the original 10, by a Japanese artist named [Yukito] Kishiro."

The tech-minded Cameron added that although he watched with great interest as "Sin City" filmmaker Robert Rodriguez reinvented the graphic-novel movie with his green-screen breakthroughs, "Angel" won't be such a slave to the colored page. "It'll be a cinematic style; it won't be a moving graphic novel," he revealed. "I think what Robert did with 'Sin City' was a spectacular visual experiment; I think it worked brilliantly, but that's not what I'm going for. It's more of a cinematic, photo-real feel."

Both the "Avatar" and "Battle Angel" series, he added, will begin with self-contained debut movies along the lines of the original "Star Wars" trilogy. "The films have to play as individual films, but they have a greater story arc that goes over the three-film cycle," he insisted, saying he isn't a big fan of "The Matrix Reloaded"-like cliffhangers between chapters. "I think that's how it works the best. I don't think you want to just run people off the cliff after the second film."

Adding that "we haven't cast anyone yet" for either movie, Cameron said both projects are proceeding full-steam-ahead, and that his self-imposed sabbatical has yielded technological breakthroughs that will pay off soon on the big screen. "We did seven deep-ocean expeditions in the last five years. We developed a lot of new technology that we'll use on the movies, and I think it will make the movies better." The filmmaker added that he can't wait to climb back into the director's chair — whether it be twice or six times.

"It's fun, I enjoy it, and I've missed it."
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on October 30, 2006, 11:12:10 AM
Quote from: Fernando on February 07, 2006, 10:31:35 AM
CAMERON: Milking it. So, I stopped work. Then I saw ALIEN VS PREDATOR and it was actually pretty good. (laughs) I think of the 5 ALIEN films, I'd rate it 3rd.

QUINT: Ummm...

CAMERON: I actually liked it. I actually liked it a lot.

i know this worried some of us (modage), and personally i am sufficiently satisfied with my rationalization on page 2 of why he complimented T3.. so if billionaire crack wasn't a good enough excuse, here is something i found on youtube to further cast doubt on the validity of his AvP compliment:

James Cameron Hates AVP (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKnS7CGWNmU)
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on October 30, 2006, 11:24:59 AM
haha, yay!  :bravo:
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on February 25, 2007, 12:25:12 AM
Jesus: Tales from the Crypt
Source: Time.com

Brace yourself. James Cameron, the man who brought you 'The Titanic' is back with another blockbuster. This time, the ship he's sinking is Christianity.

In a new documentary, Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, make the starting claim that Jesus wasn't resurrected --the cornerstone of Christian faith-- and that his burial cave was discovered near Jerusalem. And, get this, Jesus sired a son with Mary Magdelene.

No, it's not a re-make of "The Da Vinci Codes'. It's supposed to be true.

Let's go back 27 years, when Israeli construction workers were gouging out the foundations for a new building in the industrial park in the Talpiyot, a Jerusalem suburb. of Jerusalem. The earth gave way, revealing a 2,000 year old cave with 10 stone caskets. Archologists were summoned, and the stone caskets carted away for examination. It took 20 years for experts to decipher the names on the ten tombs. They were: Jesua, son of Joseph, Mary, Mary, Mathew, Jofa and Judah, son of Jesua.

Israel's prominent archeologist Professor Amos Kloner didn't associate the crypt with the New Testament Jesus. His father, after all, was a humble carpenter who couldn't afford a luxury crypt for his family. And all were common Jewish names.

There was also this little inconvenience that a few miles away, in the old city of Jerusalem, Christians for centuries had been worshipping the empty tomb of Christ at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher. Christ's resurrection, after all, is the main foundation of the faith, proof that a boy born to a carpenter's wife in a manger is the Son of God.

But film-makers Cameron and Jacobovici claim to have amassed evidence through DNA tests, archeological evidence and Biblical studies, that the 10 coffins belong to Jesus and his family.

Ever the showman, (Why does this remind me of the impresario in another movie,"King Kong", whose hubris blinds him to the dangers of an angry and very large ape?) Cameron is holding a New York press conference on Monday at which he will reveal three coffins, supposedly those of Jesus of Nazareth, his mother Mary and Mary Magdalene. News about the film, which will be shown soon on Discovery Channel, Britain's Channel 4, Canada's Vision, and Israel's Channel 8, has been a hot blog topic in the Middle East (check out a personal favorite: Israelity Bites) Here in the Holy Land, Biblical Archeology is a dangerous profession. This 90-minute documentary is bound to outrage Christians and stir up a titanic debate between believers and skeptics. Stay tuned.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on February 25, 2007, 04:51:38 PM
whoa!  awesome takedown of Christianity.  hopefully he wont be assassinated by religious nutjobs before he finishes Avatar.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on February 25, 2007, 09:23:15 PM
Quote from: modage on February 25, 2007, 04:51:38 PM
hopefully he wont be assassinated by religious nutjobs before he finishes Avatar.
that's what i was gonna say. i'm almost certain he will.

also, cool documentary but i wouldn't call it a "takedown" of christianity. it goes against established doctrine but it isn't saying anything as ridiculous as Jesus didn't live or anything like that. the resurrection is an easy target in terms of things that can be logically refuted. unfortunately this will only make Dan Brown even richer.

i wonder what other crazy shit he's secretly been up to, suddenly those 10 years he spent playing ps3 don't seem like such a waste.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Ravi on February 26, 2007, 12:47:17 AM
Quote from: modage on February 25, 2007, 04:51:38 PM
hopefully he wont be assassinated by religious nutjobs before he finishes Avatar.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg148.imageshack.us%2Fimg148%2F9766%2F210gibsonmel080306ql4.jpg&hash=5cc273463c1a583aaf0eae96e12306d427b9f386)
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on February 26, 2007, 11:22:52 AM
he didn't direct it.  only produced. :( 

Archaeologists, scholars dispute Jesus documentary

Source: CNN

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Archaeologists and clergymen in the Holy Land derided claims in a new documentary produced by the Oscar-winning director James Cameron that contradict major Christian tenets.

"The Lost Tomb of Christ," which the Discovery Channel will run on March 4, argues that 10 ancient ossuaries -- small caskets used to store bones -- discovered in a suburb of Jerusalem in 1980 may have contained the bones of Jesus and his family, according to a press release issued by the Discovery Channel.

One of the caskets even bears the title, "Judah, son of Jesus," hinting that Jesus may have had a son. And the very fact that Jesus had an ossuary would contradict the Christian belief that he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

Most Christians believe Jesus' body spent three days at the site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem's Old City. The burial site identified in Cameron's documentary is in a southern Jerusalem neighborhood nowhere near the church.

In 1996, when the BBC aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.

"They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.

The claims have raised the ire of Christian leaders in the Holy Land.

"The historical, religious and archaeological evidence show that the place where Christ was buried is the Church of the Resurrection," said Attallah Hana, a Greek Orthodox clergyman in Jerusalem. The documentary, he said, "contradicts the religious principles and the historic and spiritual principles that we hold tightly to."

Stephen Pfann, a biblical scholar at the University of the Holy Land in Jerusalem who was interviewed in the documentary, said the film's hypothesis holds little weight.

"I don't think that Christians are going to buy into this," Pfann said. "But skeptics, in general, would like to see something that pokes holes into the story that so many people hold dear."

"How possible is it?" Pfann said. "On a scale of one through 10 -- 10 being completely possible -- it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half."

Pfann is even unsure that the name "Jesus" on the caskets was read correctly. He thinks it's more likely the name "Hanun."

Kloner also said the filmmakers' assertions are false.

"It was an ordinary middle-class Jerusalem burial cave," Kloner said. "The names on the caskets are the most common names found among Jews at the time."

Archaeologists also balk at the filmmaker's claim that the James Ossuary -- the center of a famous antiquities fraud in Israel -- might have originated from the same cave. In 2005, Israel charged five suspects with forgery in connection with the infamous bone box.

"I don't think the James Ossuary came from the same cave," said Dan Bahat, an archaeologist at Bar-Ilan University. "If it were found there, the man who made the forgery would have taken something better. He would have taken Jesus."

Although the documentary makers claim to have found the tomb of Jesus, the British Broadcasting Corporation beat them to the punch by 11 years.

Osnat Goaz, a spokeswoman for the Israeli government agency responsible for archaeology, declined to comment before the documentary was aired.

http://www.discovery.com/tomb
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on February 26, 2007, 09:51:52 PM
Quote from: modage on February 26, 2007, 11:22:52 AM
he didn't direct it.  only produced. :( 

that was already established..
Quote from: MacGuffin on February 25, 2007, 12:25:12 AM
Producer Cameron and his director, Simcha Jacobovici, 

and this was the wrong thing to say..
Quote from: modage on February 26, 2007, 11:22:52 AM
"How possible is it?" Pfann said. "On a scale of one through 10 -- 10 being completely possible -- it's probably a one, maybe a one and a half."
he should have shifted to less than one. like when skinner says to bart "wait, make that.. 4 months detention". that's how you zing.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: pete on February 27, 2007, 02:01:35 AM
archaeology, like meterology, is not an exact science, and they likes to get into these semi-serious disputes from time to time.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on February 27, 2007, 08:40:57 AM
here's what pisses me off about these "events": misinformation on top of NO information before the shit has even screened.

to explain: a joke on leno and a joke on conan. i didn't watch letterman's monologue last night so i don't know if he got all the information wrong either. leno's joke was something like "james cameron has made a documentary that claims to have found the tomb where jesus, his wife, and son were all born." uh,... what the FUCK? that was the set up. as always the structure of monologue jokes for the uninformed goes like this
1. the true part
2. the joke
this is the kind of idiocy that will make any kind of informed discourse impossible.

then conan goes something like "archeologists have discovered a tomb they claim contains the corpses of jesus and his sons" WHAT THE FUCK? yeah it's a joke but it's a horrible set up because its NOT TRUE. i know they just made the announcement a couple days ago or whatever, but this is just embarrassing / depressing. most ppl get their news in bits and pieces from various sources, especially "scandal" pieces like this. from the very beginning this has no chance to be seen fairly. and poor jim's name is getting dragged around.

other idiots.. anyone who talked to jim and semcha jacobovici on larry king last nite. they do pose intereting questions which jim himself admitted were compelling arguments which they considered. he and his mate never raised their voice while they were getting attacked from every angle, jim sarcastically feigned laughter at the cheap shots the baptist whatever fat white guys were saying like "and that's what this is, a work of science fiction" one dude got so owned that's what he resorted to.

i don't know if this is any different to other "secrets revealed" exposés, what i do know is that not all of these documentaries are shameless scandalmongers. and while director and producer repeatedly state this isn't a theological debate they are proposing, rather reporting their findings, the reactions they are getting reveals a LOT more than the documentary probably will in relation to not only predictable reactions -- thats obvious -- but HOW any kind of explosive information is systematically discredited not through actual compelling evidence to contradict it, but just by the sheer volume (in sound) of ppl's unreasonable hostility.

i guess the best example of unreasonable denial and reactionary tactics is the global warming issue. our time could well be remembered as the Darkest Hour of the Greatest Enlightenment.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Fernando on February 27, 2007, 10:58:52 AM
Quote from: Pubrick on February 27, 2007, 08:40:57 AM
other idiots.. anyone who talked to jim and semcha jacobovici on larry king last nite. they do pose intereting questions which jim himself admitted were compelling arguments which they considered. he and his mate never raised their voice while they were getting attacked from every angle, jim sarcastically feigned laughter at the cheap shots the baptist whatever fat white guys were saying like "and that's what this is, a work of science fiction" one dude got so owned that's what he resorted to.

If anyone cares here's (http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0702/26/lkl.01.html) a transcript of that show. First interview is with Laura bush, then with Jacobovich and Jim.

And on Larry's main page (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/larry.king.live/) you can also see some video.

Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: modage on April 27, 2007, 10:40:10 AM
James Cameron Gets Bloody with Marilyn Manson
Source: Cinematical

He's gone to the dark depths of the sea and the Alien reaches of space. He's traveled through time, delighted in spies and had cold, sinking romances. Basically, there's not much that James Cameron hasn't done. I mean heck, he recently was involved with that whole Jesus tomb thing, so it's only logical that he also do something on the other end of the spectrum. Since it might be a bit over-the-top to dig into the ground and try to find Hell, Cameron zeroed in on... Marilyn Manson.

Last month, a French music site, Charts in France, reported that the controversial musician was filming a new video called When the Heart Guides the Hand for his upcoming album, Eat Me, Drink Me. The kicker was that James Cameron would be directing the piece, using 3-D special effects that could be viewed without glasses. I'm not sure how all of that works, but Bloody Disgusting found a clip from the video that has Manson and a young woman covered in blood and making out while he runs his hands up and down her body. Now I can't tell, but is this person Evan Rachel Wood, the actress rumored to have led to Manson's split from wife, Dita Von Teese? It looks like it could be, and would make sense, since the title of the album reflects his upcoming horror film -- Phantasmagoria: The Visions of Lewis Carroll, which she co-stars in, and the song's title has a sense of wandering eye. Personally, I think if Cameron really wanted to spice things up, he should have been the bloody one making out with Manson.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNmIoWKVpjY
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: bonanzataz on April 27, 2007, 08:27:10 PM
yeesh.... marilyn looks like shit, man. i don't wanna think about him boning 19 year olds.
bring on buddha stalin's new video.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: polkablues on April 27, 2007, 11:01:43 PM
Yeah, leave it to Marilyn Manson to ruin making out with 19-year-old girls while covered in blood for me.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on May 16, 2008, 11:55:29 AM
James Cameron to stick with 3-D
Director eyes the true story 'Dive'
Source: Hollywood Reporter

James Cameron is looking to continue his pioneering stereoscopic 3-D efforts -- though not necessarily with a big action movie or visual effects-laden project like "Avatar."

"After 'Avatar,' I want to do something a lot smaller," Cameron said Thursday.

On the director's sonar is "The Dive," a true story about the romance between controversial Cuban free diver Francisco "Pipin" Ferreras and Frenchwoman Audrey Mestre. Under his guidance, Mestre became a free diver who broke several world records but died in 2002 while competing. (Free-diving competitors must hold their breath for long periods of time while deep under water.)

"It's a drama, a love story," Cameron said. "This will require underwater photography, which will look gorgeous in 3-D."

When dramatic 3-D is achieved, Cameron believes it could bring about "the kind of uncomfortable feeling that people like in a movie theater; they feel like they are being challenged. It can actually be quite powerful.

"I think (3-D for drama) is the big overlooked area (now) because the economics don't really drive that direction."

Cameron added that action and computer animation will likely drive the 3-D market for a while, but with the infrastructure gains on the way, he expects that will change.

"The visual aesthetic of doing dramatic stuff in 3-D is very simple," he said. "Just don't remind people that they are watching a 3-D movie. That will take them out of the experience."

Ferreras was a central figure in a 2001 Imax documentary, "Ocean Men: Extreme Dive."

"Avatar" is scheduled to open Dec. 18, 2009.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on December 22, 2008, 01:05:50 AM
IESB Exclusive: FORBIDDEN PLANET May Have a Director       
Written by IESB Staff     

A FORBIDDEN PLANET remake is in the works over at Warner Bros. with a script by writer J. Michael Straczynski.

IESB has gotten exclusive information from a source inside the Forbidden Planet camp that director James "King of the World" Cameron is eyeing the project and is very interested in helming.

Cameron has been "eyeing" the project for a good part of a decade, AICN posted info on it back in 1998 when he was hot off of TITANIC. But it never came to fruition. But now that Warners is pushing full steam ahead, his interest again has been piqued.

The original Forbidden Planet was a 1956 science fiction film directed by Fred M. Wilcox and starred Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis and Leslie Nielsen (before his "Don't call me Shirley" days).

Cameron, who is currently working on his 3D pièce de résistance AVATAR certainly has his hands full, although he hasn't opened a film since 2005 with Aliens of the Deep.

But, Cameron and close partner and friend Gigantic Ego, may want to have first shot at bringing one of the most ground-breaking science fiction films of its time back to the big screen. Imagine the new technology he could create for Robby the Robot.

He is currently attached to direct Battle Angel and The Dive plus he is producing Fantastic Voyage and Nagasaki Deadline. Will he be able to squeeze in FORBIDDEN PLANET? We will wait and see!

IESB has contacted Silver Pictures who are producing the project and are awaiting comment at the time of this post.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on August 06, 2009, 12:46:15 AM
Cameron, Schwarzenegger and Arnold Reteaming?
Source: ComingSoon

While James Cameron is working on finishing December-opener Avatar, actor/comedian Tom Arnold has been talking to The New York Times, saying that he will be reuniting with the True Lies director and co-star Arnold Schwarzenegger for a movie next year:

Still, the future project Mr. Arnold said he's most excited about is a movie with a still-to-be-determined plot and script. "All I know is Jim Cameron's making it and Arnold" — Mr. Schwarzenegger — "and I are going to be in it, and it starts shooting in 14 months, the day after Arnold stops being governor of California," he said. "It's not going to be called 'True Lies II,' but it might as well be. I can live with that."

Wishful thinking or is something really brewing? True Lies, which was released in July of 1994 (has it really been 15 years already?), earned $378.9 million worldwide.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: SiliasRuby on August 15, 2009, 11:06:14 AM
Thats bullshit.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Neil on August 15, 2009, 02:21:30 PM
Drunk Fail.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on August 21, 2009, 04:11:22 PM
James Cameron plugging 3D TV sets
'Avatar' director inks deal with Panasonic on Friday
Associated Press

TOKYO -- "Titanic" director James Cameron has signed on with Panasonic to promote new 3D TVs.

The deal disclosed Friday comes as Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox are aiming to break new ground with the release of "Avatar," a movie shot entirely in 3D.

At the same time, Panasonic is making a big push to get consumers excited about three-dimensional viewing in the home -- excited enough to buy new flat-panel sets and new Blu-ray disc players. Consumers will have to wear special glasses to experience the 3D effect.

Panasonic is planning to start selling 3D TVs next year. Rivals, including Sony, which has its own movie division, and Samsung Electronics of South Korea have shown prototypes and may offer similar products. It's not clear how much 3D TVs would cost.

The manufacturers face a problem in that 3D content is scarce. There's also no agreement on a disc or broadcast format to bring the content to TV sets, though the industry group behind the Blu-ray disc may be close to finalizing a standard.

Several animation films are already being shown in theaters in 3D, along with a handful of live-action movies. "Avatar," set for release Dec. 18, will be the biggest major Hollywood film to debut worldwide in both 2D and 3D.

"I believe 3D is how we will experience movies, gaming and computing in the near future. 3D is not something you watch. It's a reality you feel you could step into," Cameron said on video.

Panasonic is hoping its collaboration with Cameron will give its brand an edge as a 3D leader, and give the company ideas for technological improvements for home TVs, GM Masayuki Kozuka said.

"We want to get global interest rolling," he told the Associated Press. "For people to want to watch 3D at home, the movie has to be a blockbuster."

Panasonic plans to have several trailer-vans driving around in the U.S. and Europe next month with large-screen 3D TVs inside showing "Avatar." In Japan, footage from "Avatar" -- a science-fiction romance set in a futuristic jungle inhabited by creatures evocative of Cameron's "Aliens" -- will appear in ads for 3D TVs. Cameron developed a new computer-controlled 3D camera system for the movie.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on September 22, 2009, 08:53:58 PM
'Titanic' prepped for 3D reissue
Film libraries to be tapped in wake of 'Toy Story' move
Source: Hollywood Reporter

Disney's imminent rerelease of "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" in 3D has many wondering if others will tap their film libraries for extra-dimensional opportunities, but it appears less a matter of if than when.

Execs on lots all around town acknowledge spitballing sessions about possible 3D rereleases. At Lightstorm Entertainment, insiders suggest it will be less than a year before a 3D rerelease is announced for a little film called "Titanic."

"We are certainly interested in exploring the opportunity to rerelease some of Lightstorm's past films in 3D," Lightstorm partner Jon Landau said. "I don't think it's too far into the future. We're pretty far down the road."

In fact, Lightstorm has done 3D tests on James Cameron's two most successful movies: "Titanic" and "Terminator 2: Judgment Day."

Still, though several Hollywood majors also might tread that path eventually, only select projects are likely until 3D home entertainment takes hold, and that's maybe five years down the road. Only the most well-known film classics would merit the considerable costs of converting 2D pics, not to mention the marketing expenses of 3D rereleases.

The still-skimpy installed base of 3D movie screens is another consideration, though Landau is heartened by the steady increase in those numbers and is confident a more robust 3D footprint will be in place soon.

Family films are the most obvious candidates for 3D rereleases, as tots often know classic family titles from DVD but haven't seen them on the big screen. CGI-animated family titles top the list, as an average $8 million or so in remastering costs can be halved thanks to inherent technical advantages in the format.

But even well-known action films such as those in the "Star Wars" franchise are expected to get 3D rereleases eventually -- the key word being eventually.

"I know we're all watching this to see if there's something there," Universal distribution president Nikki Rocco said. "The uniqueness of 3D definitely brings something different to the table. But right now it's wait and see."

Disney release the 3D versions of 1995 franchise original "Toy Story" and its 1999 sequel Oct. 2 on about 1,600 screens. The reissues serve as franchise reminders in advance of the June 18 bow of "Toy Story 3," also in 3D.

Theaters will program "Toy Story" and "Toy Story 2" back-to-back, but patrons also will have the option of hanging onto tickets to return another time within the films' two-week run.

"It's a huge value proposition for the audience," Disney distribution president Chuck Viane said. "It's a great day for the family because they can go out and enjoy two movies and have a ball."

A likely second motivation is the prospect of eventually releasing the remastered titles in the home entertainment market, but that's not likely for several years. Until then, some say, theatrical rereleases demand a cautious approach and could require as much as $25 million in related marketing.

"It's economic suicide," a top studio exec groused.

Even Disney hasn't committed to its next 3D rerelease.

"We continue to look at past properties to see if we have the right vehicles for this format," Viane said. "But we want to see what happens with these."

At Fox, distribution boss Bruce Snyder said the studio has "looked at some titles that we could think about maybe doing in 3D."

Nothing in that vein is planned imminently, but Snyder believes more than just family films could see 3D rerelease eventually.

"You've got older teens and early-20s males who are rabid about technology right now," he said. "So it has the possibility of expanding from the family audience into that audience."

The new versions of "Toy Story" and its sequel offer a new visual depth, thanks to their conversion into 3D. But don't expect anything to fly off the screen; even Pixar's summer hit "Up" kept the lid on overt 3D gimmickry.

The "Toy Story" conversions follow an earlier similar project at Disney, which in 2006 remastered Tim Burton's animated creepfest "The Nightmare Before Christmas" in 3D. "Nightmare" has rung up $24 million from theatrical campaigns staged each Halloween since then.

Pixar handled 3D chores on the "Toy Story" pics. On "Nightmare," Disney hired Industrial Light + Magic to do the work, with ILM licensing a 3D-conversion program developed by In-Three.

Westlake Village, Calif.-based In-Three has worked primarily with studios to create 3D masters for new movies being released in a mix of 2D and 3D theaters. Its execs believe other studios will follow Disney's lead and rerelease their own classics in 3D, once the installed base of 3D screens grows.

"Everybody is worried about the number of 3D screens," In-Three marketing vp Damian Wader said. "If you take a legacy film like 'Star Wars' or 'The Matrix,' you can't rerelease it in 2D, only 3D."

Until recently, there were fewer than 2,000 3D screens in place domestically.

Meanwhile, Landau has some advice for industryites bullish on 3D. Noting the costs of conversion and the inevitability of 3D dominating the theatrical landscape, he said: "If you have the ability to shoot something now in 3D, shoot it in 3D. Then you won't have to convert it."
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on December 09, 2009, 09:28:06 PM
Cameron's Next Film Revealed?
Avatar helmer may send Seven Samurai into space.
Source: IGN

James Cameron may not be done with outer space adventures once his sci-fi epic Avatar opens next week.

Production Weekly tweets that Cameron is developing a sci-fi action script penned by Shane Salerno (Armageddon, Aliens vs Predator - Requiem) for 20th Century Fox (also the studio behind Avatar).

PW didn't provide any further details than that, but SCI FI Wire claims that the project is likely Doomsday Protocol, a spec script that Salerno sold to Fox in the fall of 2008.

The Hollywood Reporter described the project at the time as "an epic science fiction adventure in the vein of The Seven Samurai" that revolves around a group of aliens and humans with various super-abilities who are brought together to save Earth.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Stefen on December 10, 2009, 02:52:37 AM
Cameron should direct a 3-D version of that awesomely hilarious MTV show, Jersey Shore.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on December 10, 2009, 05:03:19 PM
EXCLUSIVE: 'Fantastic Voyage' Is The Secret James Cameron/Shane Salerno Collaboration You've Been Hearing About
Source: MTV

In the early AM hours on December 9, an attention-grabbing tweet popped up in the Twitter feed for Production Weekly: "James Cameron is developing a Shane Salerno-scripted sci-fi action script for Fox, described as an "event" film set in the future." Speculation immediately ran wild that said project was "Doomsday Protocol," a pitch Salerno sold to Fox last year that was described as being a sort of space-based take on Akira Kurosawa's "The Seven Samurai."

It turns out that this is not the case. MTV News' Josh Horowitz spoke with Cameron and producer Jon Landau on the red carpet at the London premiere of "Avatar," and the project in question has nothing to do with space-age samurai. The actual plan is to remake sci-fi classic "Fantastic Voyage," in 3-D, with Cameron taking on the role of producer.

In the original, a small team attempts to save the life of a nearly-assassinated diplomat through a uniquely invasive surgical procedure. The magic of science allows the doctors to be shrunken down to microscopic size and injected into the ailing diplomat's body. Piloting a specialized submersible craft -- also tiny -- the team attempts to repair with the diplomat's condition -- a blood clot in his brain -- on a cellular level.

The original hit theaters in 1966, long before digital effects were a factor in Hollywood filmmaking. One can only imagine how cool (and gooey) the diplomat's computer generated innards could be made to look with today's techniques. Add 3-D to that mix and... well... count me as excited. Stay tuned to MTV.com for additional updates... more to come when the Movies team returns from their trip across the Atlantic.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on January 08, 2010, 12:39:38 AM
James Cameron Options The Last Train From Hiroshima
Source: Variety

Avatar director James Cameron has optioned Charles Pellegrino's upcoming nonfiction novel "The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back."

On the promo tour in Japan for Avatar in December, Cameron visited Tsutomu Yamaguchi, one of the last survivors of the U.S. bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during WWII. Yamaguchi died Monday at the age of 93.

The following is a description of the book:

Drawing on the voices of atomic-bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology, Charles Pellegrino describes the events and aftermath of two days in August when nuclear devices detonated over Japan changed life on Earth forever

Last Train from Hiroshima offers readers a stunning "you are there" time capsule, gracefully wrapped in elegant prose. Charles Pellegrino's scientific authority and close relationship with the A-bomb's survivors make his account the most gripping and authoritative ever written.

At the narrative's core are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand—the Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. Thirty people are known to have fled Hiroshima for Nagasaki—where they arrived just in time to survive the second bomb. One of them, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, is the only person who experienced the full effects of the cataclysm at ground zero both times. The second time, the blast effects were diverted around the stairwell in which Yamaguchi had been standing, placing him and a few others in a shock coccoon that offered protection, while the entire building disappeared around them.

Pellegrino weaves spellbinding stories together within an illustrated narrative that challenges the "official report," showing exactly what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki—and why.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on January 08, 2010, 04:45:50 AM
Quote from: MacGuffin on January 08, 2010, 12:39:38 AM

At the narrative's core are eyewitness accounts of those who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand—the Japanese civilians on the ground and the American flyers in the air. Thirty people are known to have fled Hiroshima for Nagasaki—where they arrived just in time to survive the second bomb. One of them, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, is the only person who experienced the full effects of the cataclysm at ground zero both times. The second time, the blast effects were diverted around the stairwell in which Yamaguchi had been standing, placing him and a few others in a shock coccoon that offered protection, while the entire building disappeared around them.


oh my god.

and the fact that James Cameron spoke to the dude a month before he died just makes it even more amazing. like a real life Titanic story but with the old japanese dude playing the old woman and then she dies after she told the story to the one person who would make sure it gets told to the whole world.

this is just the most absolutely unique story, up there with being the first man on the moon but i would say better. it's so good i almost wish a better director was doing it. and by better i mean cameron just makes too many mistakes and squanders otherwise brilliant ideas -- he has GREAT taste in ideas, and this could be the very best he has ever stolen. it not only MUST be told, it feels like he's the perfect person for it because it follows the themes he has been developing since he began his messiah phase. those being:

the creation of myth: the idea of the story being told, period, is the great idea of Titanic beyond the spectacle: the bringing to life of something that existed only briefly but whose existence can be used as a great metaphor for great concepts. in the backstory that i explained above, meeting the old dude RIGHT before he croaked must be compelling enough to push this to cameron's top-of-the-pile in his upcoming projects and it's real world urgency will have to make him get his shit together.

on a related a side note, in this article (http://www.monstersandcritics.com/people/news/article_1523351.php/James-Cameron-meets-Japanese-atomic-bomb-survivor-to-discuss-film#ixzz0c0yrTiOH) the japanese dude is quoted as saying this after meeting Cameron and the author of the book: "I think it's Cameron's and Pellegrino's destiny to make a film about nuclear weapons,". my other minimal research about the dude (there's lots of obituary articles out there), reveals that he was happy to be recognized as a Nagasaki survivor and didn't care about getting Hiroshima recognition until last year when he applied and got the government to acknowleged he was a twofer -- the reason being he is consciously aware that official recognition means his story MUST be told and the inherent lesson MUST be passed on as a matter of public record. the idea i'm hammering is the storytelling aspect is huge, and that's what the dude was, the mayor of nagasaki said that they'd lost a great storyteller when he passed.

nuclear-disarmament: the beauty of this story is that this person (and 164 others apparently, but it's important that he's the only officially recognized survivor of both bombs) lived basically the existence of the modern world over a three day period. that is he felt the first bomb and did not think of the possibility of getting hit again. the modern world has forgotten, since the end of the cold war, the reality of nuclear war. we all live in the shadow of it, but we've seriously forgotten what nuclear annihilation could be. the human cost of war will always be abstract in the modern televised warfare era, since vietnam basically, but it's still possible to understand the concept from a more common/likely role of the civilian casualty.

RIGHT NOW i think is the best time to strike with this message, since the whole world has gone soft.

Cameron's judgment day: a great theme to tackle now is the apocalyptic vision, see The Road, Book of Eli, 2012, anything like that. Avatar assumes a post-apocalyptic background of earth, it assumes the world has gone to shit, but it wasn't the main point and in fact kind of suffered because of the naive view it take as a necessity to push the reality and utopia of Pandora. this could be a great maturation for JC (still in messianic phase, of course, this film is once again about a resurrection/redemption).

pro-human: but through a foreign avatar! another great possibility is the modern lack of instant antagonism against the japanese, but also the fact that historically they have always been one of the most harcore xenophobic nations in the world. in this sense Cameron would be telling a hugely relevant human story through a foreign former war enemy (ideologically speaking more than anything.) so play that against avatar, we're rooting for the enemy, that's one thing, but not for a cute role reversal -- and more important unlike avatar -- not to defeat OUR KIND, but to survive against our own evil (ideologically and historically speaking). dropping the bomb was a war crime, clear and simple, it was a crime against humanity, but we won so who gives a shit.

well the winner needs to be our humanity, i think that's why this film is important.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Stefen on January 08, 2010, 05:02:14 AM
You said it. It's so good a better director should be doing it. Cameron will make it a spectacle but his dumbass will add a love story, Billy Badasses and Rock Em' Sock Em' robots, probably.

A story like this should go to someone who will put the amazing story of this man at the forefront and not let tinkering with new toys take overall precedence. Unfortunately, I feel Camerons meeting with the man ties him as the only person allowed to touch this for the rest of it's life.

You listed great reasons why Cameron could fit but who else would fit?
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: RegularKarate on January 08, 2010, 10:51:01 AM
Cameron optioned it, but do we know he doesn't just want to produce it?
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pubrick on January 08, 2010, 11:22:25 AM
Quote from: RegularKarate on January 08, 2010, 10:51:01 AM
Cameron optioned it, but do we know he doesn't just want to produce it?

seriously doubt it.

that would be a great shame. he might hav to end up palming it off to some other douche bag if he keeps taking forever with projects. but the only real reason i can see that he wouldn't direct is if he respected the story too much to make it 3D and if that clashed with some rule he made for himself that he could only ever make films if they were in 3D, like the foolish pact lynch made with prosumer-level video equipment.

on the other hand, it could still work out if he did have a stupid rule like that. he's pretty much the only person with the clout right now to try to push 3D in a way that still hasn't been considered, and that's to use it on a serious subject. if he really believes that 3D can represent reality in a more vivid way than ever before then it makes sense that this subject (most serious ever, sorry holocaust) would be the top candidate to bring an actual new consciousness to the reality of nuclear war.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Alexandro on January 08, 2010, 01:26:58 PM
sounds like an awesome film. cameron can do it and i think he may want to try a different approach this time, as in "not dumbed down for the masses".
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Gold Trumpet on March 02, 2010, 12:48:44 AM
In the hands of any other major filmmaker, I would have been disgusted with the idea, but Cameron had both the pull and conscience to make this something epic and thoroughly honor history and artistic recreation, but all of that may be in doubt because this could be the beginning of what will be a controversy that not even Cameron wants to deal with.

Bang Goes Cameron's Hiroshima Plan
Book pulled, author's facts in question
Source: Variety


Fate has just chucked a rather large spanner in the works of James Cameron's future plans, not to mention the past associations he's had with author Charles Pellegrino. What's the problem? Pellegrino's historical tome The Last Train From Hiroshima is now being seriously disputed - and yanked from publication.

Despite gathering great reviews and healthy early sales, Pellegrino's publishers, Henry Holt, have decided to halt the book's run after questions were raised by the Associated Press about one of his interview subjects, who falsely claimed to have been on board the Enola Gay, the plane that dropped the atomic weapon on Hiroshima. That has led to a deeper investigation into the two main figures in the book, Father Mattias, who allegedly lived in the city at the time of the bombing and John MacQuitty, who oversaw his funeral.

Plus, doubts are beginning to arise over Pellegrino's own veracity, with claims to him receiving a PhD from Victoria University in New Zealand also seeming to lack proof.

"It is easy to understand how even the most diligent author could be duped by a source, but we also understand that opens that book to very detailed scrutiny," said the publisher's statement. "The author of any work of nonfiction must stand behind its content. We must rely on our authors to answer questions that may arise as to the accuracy of their work and reliability of their sources. Unfortunately, Mr. Pellegrino was not able to answer the additional questions that have arisen about his book to our satisfaction."

Which brings us to James Cameron, who has collaborated with Pellegrino on Titanic projects and a controversial claim in 2007's The Jesus Famly Tomb that a burial site for Christ and some family members had been found in Jerusalem. Cameron wrote the introduction to the Tomb book and for Last Train, which he'd announced he was considering as a future film project. Yeah... We don't see that happening now.

This is one that will run and run – but given Cameron's usual smarts, we wonder how he fell for Pellegrino's seemingly bogus research.

Finally, Pellegrino worked as an "advisor" on Avatar. Which makes us seriously re-think our idea that the Na'vi are a real people. We feel so betrayed...
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on March 02, 2010, 01:12:15 PM
Debunked atom bomb book selling on Amazon

NEW YORK - The debunking of a book about the atomic bombing of Japan seems to have made it more popular.

As of Tuesday morning, Charles Pellegrino's "Last Train from Hiroshima" ranked No. 78 on Amazon.com . It was in the 200s on Monday when Henry Holt and Company, responding to questions raised by The Associated Press, halted publication.

While the book continues to sell on Amazon, Barnes and Noble Inc. said Tuesday it was pulling all its copies. Holt is no longer printing or shipping "Last Train," but said it was leaving the decision to retailers whether to sell existing books.

Film rights for the book, released in January, have been acquired by "Avatar" director James Cameron. Pellegrino served as an adviser for "Avatar," the box-office champ that has been nominated for nine Academy Awards.

According to Nielsen BookScan, which tracks around 75 percent of industry sales, Pellegrino's book has sold 7,000 copies, including 1,000 in the week leading up to Monday's announcement. Pellegrino acknowledged a week and a half ago that he had been misled by a source who claimed to have flown on a plane accompanying the Enola Gay, from which an atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. He apologized and promised to correct the text.

When first released, "The Last Train from Hiroshima" received high praise from The New York Times' Dwight Garner, who called it a "sober and authoritative new book" and a "gleaming, popular wartime history." Pellegrino first acknowledged flaws in the book when he told the Times last month that he had been misled by Joseph Fuoco, who had claimed he was a last-minute replacement for flight engineer James R. Corliss.

"Charlie's faulty source clearly used elaborate deception to create a false account," Cameron said in an e-mail to the AP.

But the AP raised additional questions, including one about the existence of a Father Mattias (the first name is not given), who supposedly lived in Hiroshima at the time of the bombing and committed suicide, and John MacQuitty, identified as a Jesuit scholar who presided over Mattias' funeral. Holt said Monday that Pellegrino did not offer a satisfactory answer.

Pellegrino, in an e-mail sent to the AP on Monday night, said he had used pseudonyms to protect the identity of the men.

Holt publicist Nicole Dewey declined comment Monday on whether "Last Train" had been fact-checked. Publishers traditionally review manuscripts for possible legal problems, but have resisted calls to fact-check nonfiction works, saying the process is too expensive and time-consuming.

The author also responded to questions about his education. Pellegrino's Web site, http://www.charlespellegrino.com , lists him as having a Ph.D. from Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. The school said it has no such record. Pellegrino said that his degree was revoked over a dispute on evolutionary theory.

Pellegrino's Web site also says he was a "founding member" of the Challenger Center for Space Science Education, an organization started soon after the 1986 shuttle tragedy. Center spokesman Rob Cork said Tuesday that Pellegrino has never served on the board of directors and that there is no record of his giving money.

"Now, we have been in existence for nearly 24 years, and we do have nearly 50 Challenger Learning Center locations around the world, and he may have made a donation at some point," Cork said.

Cameron wrote introductions for Pellegrino's "Ghosts of the Titanic," published in 2000, and for the controversial 2007 release "The Jesus Family Tomb," co-authored by Pellegrino and strongly questioned by scholars for its assertion that a tomb discovered in Jerusalem contained the remains of Jesus and possible family members.

"All I know is that Charlie would not fabricate, so there must be a reason for the misunderstanding," Cameron said.

Cameron said he does not have a shooting script for the Hiroshima film project and "no decision has been made to proceed in the short term." He added that his decision about the project would not be influenced "by the issue of a single flawed source," and when he does move forward, he "would be a fool to ignore the rich vein of eyewitness testimony, so painstakingly gathered, that exists in 'Last Train from Hiroshima.'"

Pellegrino, 56, has also written science fiction and magazine articles. A piece he wrote for Omni magazine in 1985 is widely credited as an early examination of whether the DNA of flies preserved from prehistoric times might include information about dinosaurs, a theory amplified in Michael Crichton's "Jurassic Park."
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: hedwig on March 02, 2010, 09:58:30 PM
this afternoon in a thrift store, i came across an expensive out-of-print book called 3 Dimension Sound Motion Pictures: Wide Film Motion Pictures. it's a booklength love-letter to 3D film technology, published in 1953. oddly enough, it was written by a dude named JAMES CAMERON. due to the uncanny resemblance, it's nearly impossible to yield search results on the 50s Cameron. i could not find any pics or information online apart from a mention on this website. (http://www.lawgal.net/3D/pubs.html) who knew?
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Neil on March 03, 2010, 12:14:13 PM
Quote from: hedwig on March 02, 2010, 09:58:30 PM
this afternoon in a thrift store, i came across an expensive out-of-print book called 3 Dimension Sound Motion Pictures: Wide Film Motion Pictures. it's a booklength love-letter to 3D film technology, published in 1953. oddly enough, it was written by a dude named JAMES CAMERON. due to the uncanny resemblance, it's nearly impossible to yield search results on the 50s Cameron. i could not find any pics or information online apart from a mention on this website. (http://www.lawgal.net/3D/pubs.html) who knew?

Sounds like an episode of Lost.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on June 03, 2010, 12:23:13 PM
'Avatar' sequel could be Cameron's next film
Source: The Hollywood Reporter

James Cameron expects to release his next film in three to four years, and it may be the "Avatar" sequel that News Corp. executives have previously said they have discussed with him.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Cameron told the All Things Digital conference on Wednesday that his next movie could also be "some other big film" that uses 3D. He wants to push 3D technology to new levels with whatever project is next.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: The Perineum Falcon on June 03, 2010, 12:38:28 PM
The U.S. Government Is Running Short On Ideas: James Cameron Asked For Advice On How To Clean Up The Oil Spill (http://theplaylist.blogspot.com/2010/06/us-government-is-running-short-on-ideas.html)
via: The Playlist

While gallons upon gallons of oil continue to wash up on shore, leak into the ocean and pretty much destroy everything in its path, Washington is busy meeting with Academy Award winning directors.

In what is being described as "part of the federal government's ongoing efforts to hear from stakeholders, scientists and experts from academia, government and the private sector as we continue to respond to the BP oil spill," director James Cameron took part in a meeting with "more than 20 top scientists, engineers and technical experts" on Tuesday to talk about ideas to help plug the oil. But, c'mon, seriously?

Is it just us or does Cameron's involvement just make things more worrying that no one has a goddamn clue how to minimize the damage and stop the oil from continuing to empty in the Gulf. We're sure there are other serious, real deal engineers, environmental experts and other scientist types whose input would be far more valuable than whatever Cameron has to add to the conversation. Not to slag Cameron -- because he's a very intelligent, tech savvy guy who has spent more time than most people below sea level -- but we don't think the solution in either the short or long term is going to be coming from him.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Pas on June 03, 2010, 01:57:05 PM
Haha this is ridiculous. Have they asked Rihanna, she comes from some island so she knows a lot about the ocean and swimming and shit.

This Obama administration is OBSESSED with celebrities. Everyday you see some fucking news about Obama meeting XYZ actress/singer/band. Obama comments on LeBron James free agency, Obama comments on the Tiger Woods scandal, Obama jokes about the Jonas Brothers. Just go to work man.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Alexandro on June 03, 2010, 03:37:02 PM
This is a more accurate report of what happened.

James Cameron's Oil-Spill Brainstorming Session: "It Was Time to Sound the Horn"
by Rebecca Keegan June 3, 2010, 10:25 AM

The natural reaction to hearing that Avatar and Titanic director James Cameron is helping stanch the biggest offshore oil spill in U.S. history is to contemplate just how screwed we really are. Blasting mud and garbage into the Gulf of Mexico didn't plug BP's leak, and the diamond-saw wielding underwater robots are having trouble, so we're turning to... Hollywood?

But this crisis casting is not as ludicrous as it sounds. Cameron, an aquatic gearhead with more than 2,500 hours logged underwater, owns his own fleet of submersibles and ocean-ready robots. This week, drawing on his contacts in the deep-sea science world, the director convened a meeting of more than 20 scientists and engineers in Washington to brainstorm fixes for the leak.

"I know a lot of smart people who regularly work a whole lot deeper than that well," says Cameron, referring to BP's 5,000-foot gusher. "I figured this group of top sub guys and deep-ocean scientists and engineers could maybe come up with something constructive." The director did not, as many news outlets reported, respond to a call from the Environmental Protection Agency, but rather organized the meeting himself, and invited government bodies including the E.P.A., the Department of Energy, the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the Coast Guard to participate.

Cameron says he first contacted BP a month ago, but was told they had the crisis handled. "I didn't want to be another well-meaning idiot with a bunch of suggestions," Cameron says. "But when the situation went on without a resolution, I figured the guys I knew had to be as smart as the engineers at BP, so it was time to sound the horn."

Tuesday's 10-hour engineering brainstorming session included representatives from the federal agencies, as well as Anatoly Sagalevich, the Russian Mir sub pilot who first took Cameron to the Titanic; oceanic explorer Joe MacInnis, who participated in Cameron's deep-sea documentary Aliens of the Deep; professors from the Universities of California at Berkeley and Santa Barbara; Navy salvage contractors; and Cameron's brother, Mike, an engineer with whom the director built a pair of mini remotely operated underwater vehicles (R.O.V.) that explored the Titanic wreck. The group made recommendations to various agencies, which will funnel them to BP. "It was fertile," Cameron says.

The director's diving hobby first took on a professional seriousness during the filming of his 1989 movie The Abyss, which takes place, coincidentally, on an underwater oil-drilling rig. For that film, he built the world's largest underwater set in a flooded nuclear reactor in South Carolina, and he and Mike earned patents for underwater equipment. For Titanic, Cameron dove down to the real wreck, and returned later, with his mini R.O.V.'s, to shoot the documentary Ghosts of the Abyss. Subsequent deep dives included trips to the wreck of the German World War II battleship Bismarck, at more than 15,000 feet, and to the deep ocean's hydrothermal vents. Cameron has recently been at work on a one-man submersible designed to take him to the deepest point in the world's oceans, the Mariana Trench. The last manned vessel to reach the 36,000-foot abyss was a U.S. Navy boat, in 1960.

Cameron's fictional ideas have eerie parallels to the current environmental crisis caused by BP's oil leak. In Avatar, which takes place in the year 2154 on the alien moon Pandora, the evil RDA Corporation is ruinously mining the lush jungle environment for a precious mineral called unobtainium. Cameron says he plans to set his Avatar sequel primarily in Pandora's oceans. If the director is looking for a nice, man-made catastrophe to motivate his hero, there's always the possibility of a leak of RDA's offshore unobtainium mine. For that disaster at least, Cameron could guarantee a happy ending.

—Rebecca Keegan is the author of The Futurist, The Life and Films of James Cameron

http://www.vanityfair.com/online/oscars/2010/06/james-camerons-oil-spill-brainstorming-session-it-was-time-to-sound-the-horn.html
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on September 16, 2010, 01:55:23 AM
James Cameron Adapting 'True Lies' For TV
By NELLIE ANDREEVA; Deadline

EXCLUSIVE: After smashing box office records with Titanic, James Cameron segued to television with a primetime series. Now, after topping Titanic's record haul with Avatar, Cameron is returning to TV with what is one of the hottest projects this development season: a TV series take on his 1994 action comedy True Lies that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. I hear the project, from Cameron's Lightstorm Entertainment and 20th Century Fox TV, is about to be taken out to the networks. Rene Echevarria is the writer/showrunner, exec producing with Cameron and Lightstorm's Rae Sanchini and Jon Landau. The 1994 movie centered on Harry Tasker (Schwarzenegger), a computer salesman/family man who lives a double life as a government spy. During a top-secret mission, Harry discovers that his mousy wife Helen (Curtis), is seeking adventure. Harry sets out to give her the excitement she craves while battling Middle Eastern terrorists who threaten nuclear war with the U.S.

After Titanic, which nabbed 11 Oscars, Cameron co-created and exec produced his first and only TV series to date, Fox's sci-fi drama Dark Angel starring Jessica Alba. Echevarria worked on the show for its entire 2-season run, first as a co-executive producer and then as an exec producer. Lightstorm president Sanchini also served as a producer on the series. Echevarria, who co-created/executive produced the USA Network series The 4400, most recently served as an exec producer/co-showrunner on ABC's crime dramedy Castle and also exec produces the upcoming MTV series Teen Wolf.

On the feature side, Cameron is considering several projects, including Avatar sequel(s), Battle Angel and The Dive. But 16 years after its release, True Lies continues to be a fan favorite, with speculation about a potential sequel never dying. Cameron wrote and directed the movie, which was based on the 1991 French film La totale! penned by Claude Zidi, Didier Kaminka and Simon Michael. The trio shared screenplay credit with Cameron on the Hollywood adaptation. Like Titanic and Avatar, True Lies was at the time the most expensive movie ever made, rumored to be in the $100M-$120M range. True Lies also marked the first Lightstorm project to be distributed under Cameron's multi-million dollar production deal with 20th TV's sibling movie studio Fox.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: mogwai on September 16, 2010, 10:29:45 AM
My hopes for a tv adaption for "Pirhana 2" is forever dashed.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Stefen on September 17, 2010, 04:34:01 AM
Quote from: Mogwai on September 16, 2010, 10:29:45 AM
My hopes for a tv adaption for "Pirhana 2" is forever dashed.

Piranha underwater and in 3D? Xixax would actually watch it then argue about who spoiled it.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on October 14, 2010, 07:36:59 PM
James Cameron & Angelina Jolie In Talks To Make 3D 'Cleopatra'
Source: The Playlist

The last we heard about Angelina Jolie and the "Cleopatra" project that surfaced earlier this year she said, "....if we can get the story right and do the real story —there's a lot her that's never been covered yet, if we can do something original, we will." And it looks like they've found a way. Deadline reports that serious talks are underway for James Cameron to direct Angelina Jolie in a 3D "Cleopatra." The impetus for the sudden movement on the project? Brian Helgeland's adaptation of Stacy Schiff's recently published "Cleopatra: A Life" is being described as a "brilliant script deserving of epic treatment" all about "what the Romans took from Egypt." Sony co-chair Amy Pascal is eager to get this one going, well aware of the cost of such an undertaking, but willing to dive in if only to "own" the franchise that is Angelina Jolie herself (remember, the studio also released "Salt" earlier this year). As for James Cameron, while he does have a handful of projects on his plate (including the long gestating "The Dive"), this is apparently the only project he's taking a hard look at other than the developing "Avatar" sequel. Producer Scott Rudin, who acquired the rights to Stacy Schiff's book, has been working with Jolie in developing the project. If it goes forward plans are to get it in front of cameras in 2011. And if it does, it mostly likely means Steven Soderbergh's adventurous, musical "Cleopatra" will have to be shelved for a long while (it was nearly made in early 2009 before Hugh Jackman pulled out causing the production to come apart like a house of cards). While dueling projects are not rare in Hollywood, Steven Soderbergh is not likely to play chicken with James Cameron (and the two are sort of buds anyway, with Cameron producing "Solaris"). So, the next great 3D achievement by James Cameron or another hugely expensive, cautionary tale (let's not forget the lurid story of Liz Taylor's "Cleopatra" which nearly bankrupted 20th Century Fox)? Guess we'll soon find out.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Fernando on March 26, 2012, 01:33:01 AM
James Cameron Reaches Ocean's Deepest Point, 7 Miles Below

The very barren bottom of the Mariana Trench has a visitor tonight: filmmaker James Cameron. After years of preparation, Cameron has descended 35,756 feet (10,898 meters) beneath the ocean's surface in his 12-ton lime-green submarine called "Deepsea Challenger."

It's a mission filled with near-constant danger. The 6.8-mile (10.94-km) deep trench allows not a hint of sunlight from above, is just a few degrees above freezing temperature, and will put eight tons of pressure per square inch on the filmmaker. That's equivalent to three SUVs sitting on your toe, researchers have determined.

In fact, everything about Cameron's dive is at a nearly incomprehensible scale. The trench is 120 times larger than the Grand Canyon and is more than a mile deeper than Mount Everest is tall.

The Titanic director's solo journey to the ocean's deepest point took nearly three hours. He departed at 5:15 a.m. Monday local time from a starting point 200 miles southwest of the Pacific island of Guam. He touched down at 7:52 a.m. local time (5:52 p.m. Sunday Eastern time), according to the National Geographic Society. His Twitter account reflected the incredible feat:

Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you @DeepChallenge

Only two men have preceded him in the highly dangerous mission. U.S. Navy Lt. Don Walsh and Swiss oceanographer Jacques Piccard made the dive in 1960, spending only 20 minutes at the bottom. Worse yet, they could hardly see anything after their rough landing kicked up sand from the sea floor.

But Cameron is planning a much longer stay. His 24-foot-long (7-meter-long) custom-built "vertical torpedo" is armed with enough oxygen and personal resources for a six-hour exploratory mission. The submarine is outfitted with so many lights and 3-D cameras that it's been described as an underwater TV studio. And while Cameron might be alone at such unfathomable depths, he plans to share his experience with the masses by releasing a documentary. He's also collecting rocks and soil samples to assist with scientific research.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2012/03/25/james-cameron-reaches-oceans-deepest-point-7-miles-below/
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: mogwai on March 26, 2012, 10:14:13 AM
Someone please put him under suicide watch so I can enjoy Avatar 2.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: MacGuffin on July 08, 2013, 10:34:45 AM
James Cameron confirms he will begin developing Battle Angel in 2017, after completing Avatar 3
Source: JoBlo

James Cameron had previously said the he only envisioned working on AVATAR for the foreseeable future. With the confirmation that AVATAR 2 and AVATAR 3 would be coming, we all but assumed that Cameron's long in development BATTLE ANGEL would fall by the wayside. That does not appear to be the case and we actually have a date to look forward to.

At the TagDF forum in Mexico City, Cameron said he plans to begin developing BATTLE ANGEL in 2017 while he is in post-production on AVATAR 3. This will be an opportunity for the filmmaker to shift his focus from developing new movie technology and to focus on character and story. This is something of a surprise because not only does it cement that he feels he will be done with the two AVATAR sequels within 4 years.

BATTLE ANGEL will be based on the BATTLE ANGEL ALITA manga that tells the story of Alita, a cyborg who has lost all memories and is found in a garbage heap by a cybernetics doctor who rebuilds and takes care of her. She discovers that there is one thing she remembers, the legendary cyborg martial art Panzer Kunst, which leads to her becoming a Hunter Warrior or bounty hunter. The story traces Alita's attempts to rediscover her past and the characters whose lives she impacts on her journey.

From his comments, it sounds as if Cameron has developed enough technology to make BATTLE ANGEL a reality. I am looking forward to what the director will be bringing to the AVATAR sequels. I enjoyed the first film and it remains the sole 3D experience I have found worthwhile at the movies. There have been many critics of the current 3D boom which many consider lackluster and trace back to AVATAR. Cameron addressed the use of post-conversion 3D in movies at the same forum:

"One thing is shooting in 3D and another is to convert to 3D...If you spend $150 million on visual effects, the film is already going to [look] spectacular [and] perfect."

Well, at least he admits there is a time and a place for 3D. I just gained new respect for him!
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Ravi on March 10, 2017, 03:09:42 PM
http://www.avclub.com/article/wait-those-avatar-sequels-just-got-even-longer-251872

The wait on those Avatar sequels just got even longer
By Danette Chavez@bonmotvivant

James Cameron is going to make three more Avatar movies regardless of how you feel about them or the Avatar Land attraction that recently opened. The director-producer has shown a little discretion—for example, he doesn't think he needs to bring Pandora to the small screen. Cameron's pretty confident that four Avatar movies are all we could ever kind of want, or not really need. That said, you'll have to wait a while before booking return passage to the land of the very tall and very blue people (and Sam Worthington). Cameron tells The Toronto Star that since he's cooking up a whole batch of Avatar movies and not just working on an individual sequel like a sucker, it'll be a while before the first one's ready.

QuoteWell, 2018 is not happening. We haven't announced a firm release date. What people have to understand is that this is a cadence of releases. So we're not making Avatar 2. We're making Avatar 2, 3, 4 and 5. It's an epic undertaking. It's not unlike building the Three Gorges dam. [Laughs.] So I know where I'm going to be for the next eight years of my life. It's not an unreasonable time frame if you think about it. It took us four-and-a-half years to make one movie and now we're making four. We're full tilt boogie right now. This is my day job and pretty soon we'll be 24/7. We're pretty well designed on all our creatures and sets. It's pretty exciting stuff. I wish I could share with the world. But we have to preserve a certain amount of showmanship and we're going to draw that curtain when the time is right.

We're not positive, but it sounds like the next Avatar movie won't be out until sometime next decade. Presumably by then, Worthington will be in the middle of his own McConaissance, or some similar resurgence—the Working-again-ing-ton, maybe? Well, whatever, we have plenty of time to coin an appropriate term.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Drenk on March 10, 2017, 03:19:51 PM
Why doesn't he make an open world game?

Anyway, I have no expectations but, well, I'm curious. I like Avatar. Even if I haven't seen it since its release because, without the 3D, it's as if the movie isn't whole.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on March 10, 2017, 03:27:43 PM
I still don't care if it's Pocahontas, I absolutely loved Avatar with no reservations, as a 3D theater experience. "Unobtanium" is the only thing that even made me flinch. I also haven't watched it since then.

People thought Titanic would be a financial disaster. And then they somehow thought the same thing about Avatar. I think he knows what he's doing. I will gladly go see all of these movies.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Lottery on March 10, 2017, 07:45:33 PM
It makes sense that the James Cameron thread title is in caps.

The first hour or so of the extended cut of Avatar is great. I adore that new world exploration/science vibe. The second half isn't so great when it becomes a more typical action film.

I don't think anyone's undertaken anything like this before- but that's Cameron schtick. I hope he moves away from conventional action and drama and furthers the exploratory, science side of the franchise. So we have this masive, highly immersive 'world' experience.
I know that won't ever happen but the later drama/action stuff did very little for me- and this is James Cameron we're talking about. But if he had the balls to step away from that and properly combine his Avatar world with his academic side, that would honestly be the greatest thing he's ever done. Aside from T2 that is.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: polkablues on March 11, 2017, 01:46:04 AM
It is concerning to me that for all his talk of the technology and the designs and the scale, he never once mentions the scripts or the story with the same level of enthusiasm. Or... at all, really.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: wilder on July 17, 2017, 10:43:16 PM
4K Blu-ray/Blu-ray from the new transfer on October 3, 2017. Also in theaters on August 25th.

(https://xixax.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi.imgur.com%2FlAXzahN.jpg&hash=745a53ab7487e4f627023dd68ef080f5aab194e5)


Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: jenkins on October 16, 2019, 03:59:09 PM
QuoteIF YOU COULD CONTROL ONE PIECE OF IP, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

"I generate my own stuff, so I'm not really interested in IP."

BEST OR WORST THING ABOUT HOLLYWOOD'S MERGER MANIA

"As long as people pay the bills and when I show up to work on a Monday morning, they haven't closed down my production, I could give a shit."

LAST BIG SPLURGE

"Building a sub."

YOU FIND BOB IGER'S IPHONE. WHICH CONTACT DO YOU CALL?

"I can call anybody I want. I don't need Bob Iger's cell phone."

The Hollywood Reporter 100: The Most Powerful People in Entertainment 2019 (https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/lists/thr-100-hollywood-reporters-powerful-people-entertainment-1246527/item/thr-100-2019-taika-waititi-1246504)

just read this one quoted and now ill look through all of them
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Jeremy Blackman on October 16, 2019, 04:40:44 PM
Hmmm interesting. Now I have to skim through this. Cameron, Ellison, and Oprah have good answers. Kathleen Kennedy's answers are awful. Ellen's are predictably cringey, especially paired with that photo. Shame we didn't get to hear Rupert Murdoch's podcast recs though.
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: wilberfan on July 18, 2021, 11:41:55 PM
The Tin Man Gets His Heart: An Oral History of 'Terminator 2: Judgment Day' (https://www.theringer.com/movies/2021/6/30/22555687/terminator-2-judgement-day-t2-oral-history)

Three decades ago, James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Linda Hamilton joined forces again to make the biggest, baddest, most eye-popping sequel ever. Here's the story of how the machines took over Hollywood.


James Cameron wanted a villain made out of liquid metal. In the brainstorming phase for Terminator 2: Judgment Day, he knew the sequel to his first big hit had to have something no one had seen before. Something that, in the early '90s, had never even been attempted. He'd landed on the idea of the T-1000, an android assassin seemingly made of flowing mercury that could shape-shift into any other organism. And by the time he was done, he'd created one of 20th century cinema's greatest "Holy shit!" moments.

Yet the science-fiction epic, released 30 years ago this week, hinged on more than technical wizardry. To its director, T2 is the story of a boy and the father he never had. The sequel wouldn't work without a strong bond between the reprogrammed title character and the teenager he's sent back in time to protect. "Sure, there's going to be big, thunderous action sequences, but the heart of the movie is that relationship," Cameron says from his home in New Zealand. "I have always loved The Wizard of Oz. This movie is about the Tin Man getting his heart."

T2 is a departure from the far bleaker original, 1984's The Terminator, which its creator calls a "science-fiction slasher film." Linda Hamilton's franchise protagonist, Sarah Connor, has transformed from a put-upon heroine to a self-trained commando whose attempts to thwart the coming apocalypse land her in a psychiatric hospital. Her son, John, the future leader of the resistance in the war against the genocidally self-aware defense system Skynet, is in foster care. And the T-800, once a remorseless killer with a curious but hypnotic Austrian accent, somehow helps bring them together as a family—then helps them save the world.

"Look at Titanic, it's all about relationships," says Arnold Schwarzenegger, who relished the chance to turn the cybernetic bad guy he played in The Terminator into a good guy. "That's what makes it touching."

The juxtaposition of warmth and spectacle is what elevates Terminator 2 above nearly all other '90s popcorn flicks. But that somehow undersells its appeal and influence. Industrial Light & Magic's cutting-edge visual effects, a Kevlar-tough woman as the lead, dozens of memorable one-liners, and terrifyingly prescient themes combined to form a blockbuster that pushed the limits of the medium. The top-grossing movie of 1991 escalated a big-screen arms race that's played out in American cineplexes every summer since.

Precious few massively budgeted, VFX-laden, star-filled tentpole pictures, however, have been able to replicate the alchemy of T2. Most imitators, ILM's nine-time Academy Award recipient Dennis Muren says, are like "Xeroxes of Xeroxes of Xeroxes. And every time you copied something, you lost something." Many of the facsimiles are entertaining, but they're still facsimiles. In hindsight, there's no mystery why.

"There's only one Jim Cameron," Schwarzenegger says. "It's as simple as that."

Part 1: "If We Pull It Off, It Will Be Huge."
The saga of Terminator 2 begins with its predecessor. Cowritten and produced with Cameron's second wife, Gale Anne Hurd, the first installment cost $6.4 million to make and grossed $78.4 million. The surprise smash, initially dismissed as a glorified B-movie, made Schwarzenegger an A-list star and gave its director instant Hollywood cachet. He went on to helm the mega-hit Aliens (1986), in which Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley cements her status as an action icon, and then the underwater sci-fi adventure The Abyss (1989). The latter had a nightmarish production and underwhelmed at the box office, but its trippy visual effects were proof of concept for his next project.

But before T2 could be made, the rights needed to be secured. Enter Carolco Pictures, the flashy independent that at the time was financing Schwarzenegger's soon-to-be-released Total Recall. To make the sequel, studio head Mario Kassar reportedly had to buy out both the Hemdale Film Corporation and Hurd. It didn't come cheap.

Mario Kassar (executive producer, Carolco Pictures cofounder): It's $15 million, I have the rights, and we haven't done anything yet.

James Cameron (director-cowriter): The first film made money and it was definitely a hit, but it wasn't like Star Wars. You didn't have to start on the sequel the next day. And frankly, in order to get that film made, I made this deal, to sell the rights. Whatever it took to get the film made, to get my foot in the door. And so I think it was justified. But then I didn't control the rights.

I'd already made another couple films and forgotten about it, and I got a call from Carolco and they said, "We want you to make another Terminator film. We'll pay you $6 million." I said, "You have my full attention."

Kassar: I have lunch with him at a place called Madeo. And I said, "Well, it's a go. I mean, I already spent the money. You know I'm doing it, so go with God. Go write the script."

Cameron: I talked to Dennis Muren at ILM. I said, "I've got an idea. If we took the water character from The Abyss, but it was metallic so you didn't have the translucency issues, but you had all the surface reflectivity issues and you made it a complete human figure that could run and do stuff, and it could morph back into a human, and then turn into the liquid metal version of itself, and we sprinkled it through the movie, can we do it?" He said, "I'll call you back tomorrow."

Dennis Muren (visual effects supervisor, Industrial Light & Magic): I had an idea of what's possible not only from The Abyss, but I'd seen there was work being done and research at universities, and commercials on TV at that time that had computer graphics, and their figures were moving and animated.

Cameron: Tom Sherak ran all distribution for Fox for years, and he said, "Who would have known that we made a $60 million movie that was just a test run for Terminator 2?" They were still stinging a little bit from the fact that The Abyss broke even, just barely.


Muren: James is a big lover of technology and of effects work, and really wanted to impress the audience with stuff they've never seen before.

Cameron: He called me back and he said, "We can do it. We can't do a huge volume, we don't have a pipeline, so pick your battles."

Muren: It took a few months to get it in place. And Jim was very detailed on the storyboards; not every frame, but every single shot.

Cameron: We used the CG very sparingly. We had 14 CG shots in The Abyss and we had only 42 two years later in T2. There were probably another 50 or 60 shots that were practical prosthetic effects done by Stan Winston Studio, which today would have been done as CG.

William Wisher (cowriter): I think we were 18, 19 when we met. I did some writing on The Terminator. We had been talking about doing something else and he called me up one day and said, "I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that Terminator 2 is going to happen and the bad news is that we're already behind schedule, so why don't you come on over here right now."

Cameron: I basically had two competing ideas. One was Skynet sends a terminator, another Arnold terminator, to take out John, and the resistance sends one that's been reprogrammed, that would've been Arnold too. So Arnold would become a dark hero character, obviously.

Wisher: Having Arnold fight another Arnold is just boring. Boring, boring, boring.

Cameron: When I first conceived the story idea, it was in two parts. In the first part, Skynet sent a cyborg with a metal endoskeleton and the good guys sent the protector. The protector crushes him under a truck or throws him through some big gear structure or machine. And then, up in the future, they realize the ripples of time are progressing toward them. They still haven't won the battle.

[Skynet would] think long and hard about pulling the trigger on sending the experimental, one-off super weapon that they've created, that even they're terrified to use. I didn't call it the T-1000—it was just a liquid metal robot. And so now the thing that's coming at you is much, much scarier than that other metal endoskeleton guy with his skin hanging off. I took that guy out of the story, but then I thought, "Let's bring that guy back. Let's make him the adversary." I merged the two ideas. Instead of Arnold versus Arnold, it was Arnold versus the scary liquid metal weapon.

Wisher: We made him a cop. We thought, "Well, if he's a police officer, he can go places and do things and won't be questioned."

Cameron: That was just me having fun with an authority figure. But there is a thematic point to that, which is that we, as human beings, become terminators. We learn how to have zero compassion. Terminator, ultimately, isn't about machines. It's about our tendency to become machines.

Wisher: We watched the first Terminator again and we were spitballing and thinking, "Where would these characters be?" So we thought, "Sarah, she knows what the future is—no one will believe her. She's probably spent some years hanging out with survivalists or paramilitary types."

Cameron: I remember sitting there once, high on E, writing notes for Terminator, and I was struck by Sting's song, that "I hope the Russians love their children too." And I thought, "You know what? The idea of a nuclear war is just so antithetical to life itself." That's where the kid came from.

Brad Fiedel (composer): The first film was really dark and propulsive. It just never stopped moving forward. But this had a little bit of a warmer heart.

Wisher: It's a mother-son story where the stakes just happen to be the survival of the human race.

Cameron: Linda, I called her up and I said, "Look, they want to pay us a lot of money to make a sequel. Are you in or are you out? But just between you and me, I don't really want to do it if Sarah doesn't come back and I don't want to recast Sarah, so you got to say you're in." And she and I weren't involved. [Editor's note: Cameron and Hamilton were married from 1997 to 1999.] We hadn't even really hung out at all much since the first film. She was making a movie somewhere down South.

And so she said, "Yeah, in principle, I'm in, but I want to be crazy." I said, "Well, what do you mean, crazy? How crazy?" She said, "Crazy, like I've been driven crazy." I said, "Like you're in an insane asylum, like you're institutionalized?" She said, "Yeah, sure. Let me play crazy. Let me go nuts." I said, "All right. Well, you're going to get my version of nuts," and she said, "All right. I'm down."

Linda Hamilton (Sarah Connor, to Entertainment Weekly): Anything that scares me I want to do.

Editor's note: Through her agent, Hamilton declined to be interviewed for this article.

Wisher: We had to call Arnold up and go, "We've got this great idea." He listened to us and he said, "Just make me cool."

Cameron: I wound up writing right up until the very last second where I had to get in a limo and squirt to the airport and jump on a big charter jet that Carolco was using to fly in all of its stars and filmmakers to Cannes in early May of 1990. And I'm scrambling down to the wire to get this script done and printed out and my printer fucked up. I'm printing this thing out and I'm supposed to have left already 20 minutes ago. I literally pull it out of the laser printer hot, put a clip on it, and shove it in a gym bag and haul ass to the airport. And I walk on the plane and all of the big agents and movie stars and filmmakers in Hollywood are all sitting there, all in their seats, and you could hear a pin drop. And I have to walk all the way down the aisle past all these accusing eyes. It's like, "Oh, yeah, you think you're special, don't you? There's always one." I'm like, "I know, guys, I know. Sorry."

Anyway, as I'm going by, I hand the script to Arnold.

Arnold Schwarzenegger (T-800): I read it on the plane on the way over there. I remember that very well.

Cameron: Horrible flight, incredible turbulence. I'm thinking, literally, "Movies are going to grind to a halt because this plane is going down in the Atlantic." It's like the Titanic times five, right?

Schwarzenegger: Several times I read something that I had no fucking idea what he was talking about. I said, "What is polyalloy?"

Cameron: He and I had a breakfast meeting. Arnold always had the same thing—oatmeal with nuts and dates and fruit in it—so that's what I had. I could tell there was something bugging him, right? We were pals at this point. Post-Terminator, we rode motorcycles together. And he said, "Jim, I have a big problem with the script." I said, "Well, what is it?" And he said, "I don't kill anybody." I said, "I know, right? They'll never see that coming. Nobody will guess it." He said, "I know, but one thing is surprise. Another thing is I don't kill anybody and I'm the terminator."

This is happening on some terrace at Cannes and everybody's looking. I'm like, "Let's talk this out." I give him all the reasons how it's going to work. He said, "I know, but everybody knows I kick in the door and shoot everybody. That's what I do."

Schwarzenegger: How do you make people believe that this is the same guy we've seen in the first Terminator? Now all of a sudden, he's protecting the human race and protecting this kid? How do I switch over to that?

Cameron: I finally got him to get his head around that part of it.

Schwarzenegger: It was strange, but I thought, "If we pull it off, it will be huge."

Part 2: "This Would Be Like a Super Bowl Win for Me"
With Schwarzenegger and Hamilton on board, Cameron and the late casting director Mali Finn built a unique ensemble around the two leads. That meant eschewing Hollywood stars for talented character actors, some of whom were in search of their big break. And one who hadn't even acted at all.

Edward Furlong (John Connor): I was at a Boys Club in Pasadena. I was just hanging out there. And Mali was there, and she was kind of like looking at me from across the way.

Cameron: We looked at all the boys of that age that were coming up and they either were overexposed in the wrong context or they were these little smiling machines that were being churned out by the advertising industry. Because you get these kids that are kid actors and they teach them how to be perky in family settings and sell cereal.

Furlong: I mean, who knows, in this frickin' town what's going on when this older lady is staring at you and comes up to you?

Cameron: She walked up to him and he said, "What do you want, frog lips?" She said, "I like you. Have you ever been in a film?" And he said, "No, and don't like me," or something like that. And she said, "No, seriously, have you ever been in a film?" He said, "My dad films my birthdays." And so it was like you're just starting from scratch.

Furlong: It was crazy. I went in there and she just asked me to improv a scene. That was the first audition. Once the scripts started coming in, it started actually becoming a real thing. And I'm getting nervous. And Mali, she just believed in me.

Cameron: There was a pain. There was a surliness. There was an intelligence. It was all there. What you see in the movie was all there, it was just a question of pulling it out. The credit totally goes to Mali.

Furlong: I landed [it] on my last audition. It went from hundreds of kids to, I think, me and one other kid. And I'm sweating balls.

Cameron: I remember when we made the final decision, I said to Mali, "I'm going to pick up this phone, I'm going to call this kid. It's going to change his life." And that's a responsibility.

Furlong: It's basically one of those life-changing events.

Joe Morton (Cyberdyne Systems computer scientist Miles Dyson): One of the questions that James asked me was, "Why do you want this role?" And I said, "Because of a joke that Richard Pryor told." And he said, "What's that?" And I said, "Well, Richard Pryor said that the reason Hollywood either kills off the Black actors in sci-fi or they're not in it at all is because Hollywood doesn't think we're gonna be here in the future." He laughed, and I think I got a call that night.

Robert Patrick (T-1000): My agent said, "You're going to go meet Mali Finn. We don't know anything about the role other than that. There's no script, but just go and meet with her and know that they're looking for an intense presence."

Cameron: Robert, he was one of a number of actors that I saw in that age range. I wanted him to be late 20s, like he was a young recruit cop. I wanted a little bit of a contrast to Arnold and I wanted somebody physical, but not big. Not Conan. I wanted to create a contrast. I thought of it as an East meets West kind of energy, brute force versus the fluid. Like, the terminator punches him and he flows around him and all of a sudden he's behind him.

Schwarzenegger: He was just so opposite, right? I was big, he was lean. I was powerful, he was fast. I had basic technology that we had in the first movie. What this guy had was sophisticated abilities.

Cameron: I dallied briefly with Billy Idol in that role because I thought he had a really interesting look and presence. I can't say, sitting here years out, that I would've actually followed through with that, but it was something we were discussing. It got taken off the table when Billy had a bad motorcycle crash.

Patrick: I met with Mali and I tried to do something physically that when she looked at me, she kind of got an intense vibe. And she said to me, "Well, whatever you're doing right now, I like what you're doing. Let's go put that on film."

Cameron: I said, "He's chameleonic. He has to physically touch things to be able to read them." And so he just did this acting exercise in front of me where he was touching the floor and he was touching the wall and he was in a mental state of being a hunter. I said, "And it's emotionless. You only project emotion when you need to."

Patrick: I kept trying more and more things. And I could kind of get the sense that it was going my way. And then I think there was a third day where they had me actually come in and he let me read the script. I remember it took me about five hours. It just blew my mind. If I could pull this off, this would be like a Super Bowl win for me. I went in there and I put the script down on James's desk and I said, "I can do this." And he said, "Well, that's why you're here, Robert, because we're going to go throw a cop uniform on you and do a little screen test."

Cameron: I wanted to see how his face took the light, how his eyes and the planes of his face took the light, because that's important. And he just emerged. There was a moment where there was Robert and then there was everybody else.

Schwarzenegger: He was so perfect.

Muren: We did a lot of scans of him walking. He had a certain little style to his walk that Steve Williams, the animator, picked up on right away. And it was a surprise to me and most of us, I think, that [when] walking, this person could look completely different than that person.

Part 3: "One of the Most Amazing Transformations That I've Ever Seen"
For reprising their roles from The Terminator, Schwarzenegger and Hamilton landed eight- and seven-figure paychecks, respectively. That disparity irked the latter. "It was quite a bit more than the first one, but still when I look at my contribution next to Arnold's, there's a great inequity there," Hamilton said in 1991. "I'd have been thrilled to play the part for free, too, but I have to look after all parts of my life and one part of that is about earning money and feeling OK about earning that kind of money. I'm worth it."

This time around, Arnold wasn't the only jacked action star on set. Before and during shooting, Hamilton worked tirelessly with both a personal trainer and weapons specialist Uzi Gal. The costars set the tone for the rest of the cast.

Cameron: This idea that we invented the strong woman in the '80s is bullshit. They've been there in Hollywood the whole time. But building a movie around one was really the breakthrough.

Jenette Goldstein (John Connor's foster mother, Janelle): He just wrote what's in the world without any of the fluff over, "Ooh, look at that big, strong woman."

Wisher: When you first see her, she's doing pull-ups on her bed and she's got muscles.

Goldstein: She got herself into this incredible shape.

Schwarzenegger: It was kind of like with First Blood II, where Sly for the first time was absolutely ripped. The first thing you said was, "Holy shit."

Morton: We were in San Jose, just before they blow up the [Cyberdyne] building. I was on my way out somewhere and she was just coming from the gym. And I just remember being embarrassed that she was in far better shape than I was.

Schwarzenegger: She told me that she has been running on the beach with this guy Uzi, who was a trainer with the boots on and the combat gear.

Linda Hamilton (to EW): I learned to load clips, change mags, check out a room upon entry, verify kills. Because Sarah would have. And it was sheer hell.

Schwarzenegger: It inspired me to train hard. It was really one of the most amazing transformations all-around that I've ever seen in my 40-some years of acting.

Patrick: He's Arnold fucking Schwarzenegger. I grew up watching him on the Wide World of Sports. He created the whole body-building world. I mean, he's that charismatic.

Morton: He's a guy who is completely aware of his strengths and his weaknesses as an actor.

Wisher: Arnold's presence lends itself to gravitas.

Patrick: He watched me take after take. And he had such an appreciation for the physicality of the performance. I would look over and he would have a cigar, and he'd give me a big thumbs-up.

Wisher: We kept his dialogue brief, not because he's not a good actor. He is a good actor. But having someone with that presence speaking mostly in very small bites, you as an audience can infer a lot of meaning into that. Terminator's not really a chatty guy.

Cameron: He's the straight guy and the kid and Linda, they do so much around him. He knew how to play it down the center and not overemote.

Furlong: I was a 13-year-old kid. And Predator and Total Recall ... he was Arnold. It was my first movie. I was so starstruck. I just couldn't believe it.

Danny Cooksey (John Connor's friend Tim): It was his first thing. [His performance] had this honesty about it because it hadn't been tampered with. He was just out there as a kid, having fun and just being natural.

Schwarzenegger: It's really hard to go in to act for the first time in front of cameras in front of like 50 people standing around. The first time I was in a movie, I know how scary it was. And I can imagine what it was like as a 13-year-old kid.

Furlong: I think the best way to get over all that was actually working alongside him.

Schwarzenegger: I felt like it was up to me to kind of make him my friend, rather than being his mentor. I just started playing games with him and hanging out with him, so that when we eventually started doing the scenes together, he was not any different.

Cameron: He totally glommed on to Arnold as a father figure, and Arnold loved Eddie and loved torturing him. Jumping him through his hoops, making him do push-ups, and all that. "Come on, Eddie. Don't be so lazy. You've got to get fit. You've got to get fit." You could picture it.

Part 4: "He Becomes Literally Like a Machine."
Terminator 2 was no ordinary sequel. Its size and scope eclipsed the original in every way imaginable. Shot in late 1990 and early 1991 in Los Angeles and in other locations around California and the Southwestern United States, T2 was, at the time, the most expensive movie ever made. It reportedly had a budget upward of $90 million, a figure that Carolco denied back then. Yet the pressure of steering such a huge ship didn't intimidate the exacting Cameron, who still relied on the same DIY ethic that he developed as a young man working for B-movie king Roger Corman. Even while filming complex set pieces—like when the T-1000 morphs into John's foster mother and stabs her husband through a milk carton—he took the smallest details into account.

Kassar: The budget was supposed to be $60 million or $80 million or $90 million, but I knew that was a ghost number. I knew it was going to be higher, because with James, it usually goes a little higher no matter what.

Fiedel: Jim would come in, and I was in a little refurbished garage studio in Studio City, and he said, "Brad, I just want you to know you're scoring the most expensive film ever made in your garage."

Wisher: I remarked one day that just the opening title credits on T2 was about the same budget for The Terminator.

Morton: We were about to finish my death scene. Before we finished shooting it, James decides to blow out all the windows that Linda has to crawl past. There's no cameras rolling. He just wants to blow them out so he can see what it looks like. I was shocked. I thought, "What?"

Kassar: With James, you write the check, you close your eyes, you go two minutes to the set to say "Hi" every once in a while, and you let him be. Because if you think you're going to control him, you'd be wasting your time.

Xander Berkeley (John Connor's foster father, Todd): It was just something about the meticulousness in combination with the expertise and intelligence that he brought to every situation; whatever risks were being taken had a level of calculation that was just so impressive.

Goldstein: He was working just like he was working on a Corman with you. Something didn't work, he was like, "We're not waiting. We're going to just gaffer tape that thing up and we're going."

Berkeley: I knew it was going to be spectacular, like nobody had ever seen before, because of the attention being given to details.

Goldstein: I read the script and it's like, "Your arm turns into a sword ..."

Berkeley: I had to practice sword swallowing for two weeks before we shot it. With a dulled aluminum blade. They did a casting of my head so that they could put a retractable blade coming out the back that flashed sideways. But the blade has to be far enough down my mouth that it could sell the gag as if it was coming through the back of my head.

Goldstein: They made a model of my arm and they painted the flesh with little freckles up to the sword and then they had to place it inside Xander's mouth.

Schwarzenegger: Stan Winston was a genius.

Berkeley: There were three different blades that went down my throat at any point. There's one that's straight that had a handle on the far end so that the puppeteers could hold it out of frame and they'd just pan the length of the blade to me pinned. And then when they unpinned me and I fall to the ground, I had to remain in that position for four or five hours until four o'clock in the morning without moving. My body is on the ground and there's a pool of milk and a pool of blood, which Jim personally swirled each time. He impressed upon me very clearly that if I moved a hair in any of the following sequences, that it would fuck up the shot. I don't think I could walk for several days after that, but he sent me a nice bottle of Cristal for my efforts.

Morton: When you have that kind of budget hanging over your head, every moment counts, every decision counts. The pressure must be enormous.

Schwarzenegger: He transforms a day before shooting. We will go out for dinner, and the next day he's a totally different person. He becomes literally like a machine. He has a very clear vision of what he wants. He's very demanding and he will not go for anything that is almost there. It has to be there. That's it. Everyone is kind of scared on set. Because Jim doesn't use much psychology. He just screams at everybody.

Patrick: My main thing was just, "I've got to figure out a way to satisfy James and make him happy with the shots." Because he's not moving on until you get it right.

Schwarzenegger: I'm not good with names. He remembers everyone's name. He remembers everything. Page numbers. He says, "Yeah, Page 78. Trust me. I wrote the fucking script."

Berkeley: The Steadicam operator in one of the sequences where we were just in the house interacting, his machine wasn't functioning and Jim was furious. The guy said, "Look, it's jammed. I don't know what's happened. It's not working." Jim just grabbed it out of his hand and said, "Give it to me." And put it down on the table, busted it open, bang, bang, bang, did a couple of very precise, surgical moves on this thing, slammed it shut, handed it back to him and said, "Now try it." And it worked perfectly, and we got the shot, and he kept his head.

Schwarzenegger: He just goes off the deep end about any little thing. But at the same time, he's very supportive when you act. He would inspire you and he'd say, "Oh, it will be so cool when you turn the gun like that. I want you to practice this. It's so cool." He would just push you and he would encourage you.

Patrick: We were sitting there in the [Bull Creek spillway] and we were trying to do the walk out of the fire. And it was tough. And I was frustrated, losing my patience, not feeling like I was able to do what they wanted me to do. But I didn't know what it was they wanted me to do. And I'm trying to figure this shit out, too. And Jim could pick up on that kind of stuff. He was aware of what I was going through. And he would say something like, "Hey, look man, we're creating something. This is film history we're doing right now. It's never been done."

Part 5: "At Some Point, the Emulation Becomes Real."
Terminator 2 is a violent action movie, but the film wouldn't be a classic without an underlying sense of humanity. As the narrative progresses, the T-800 gradually learns what humanity is while Sarah Connor regains it. For Hamilton's character, the turn comes when a nightmare of the coming nuclear holocaust—which Cameron depicts in gruesome fashion—leads her to hunt down and attempt to kill the unwitting Skynet architect, Miles Dyson, before he creates the defense system that ultimately will wipe out billions. But in the end, she can't go through with it.

Cameron: Her survival was all about her son's survival. Her son's survival was all about the survival of the human race. She was doing it for the burning children that she saw in her dreams.

Berkeley: It was an insane financial risk for them to spend as much as they spent on the seconds-long sequence of the nuclear annihilation. And I remember Jim talking about it at the time: "Maybe I'm crazy. But we had to do it." And that is the moment to me that elevates the movie to art.

Cameron: There's a whole unseen arc that's happened between the first film and the second film, where she's gone cold. She's gone dark, she's become a machine. And when she goes after Miles Dyson, she is a Terminator.

Morton: At the moment that he meets them, Miles is sort of the most human character going until Linda makes her transition. What I did very purposely is I never hung out with either Linda or Arnold, because I wanted to keep them feeling alien. I wanted to keep them feeling like, "I don't know who you people are, or what you're about, but it's nuts."

Cameron: She empties that magazine, drops that gun, pulls the .45, walks in, chambers a round, shoots him in the back. It's like she is just all business and we went for that. She trained so rigorously to be able to pull that off better than any guy in the fucking history of movies. She was terrifying.

Furlong: She's the emotional crux of that movie.

Cameron: His kid is there, and his wife is there, and all he cares about is protecting his family, and her finger is tightening on that trigger. She's one neuron away. The dime is bouncing on its edge right at that moment. She could've pulled it. She had 6 billion lives on one side of her conscience.

And then there's her not being able to. The way she chose to play it, where [Dyson is] yelling and crying and begging and she just puts her hand out and says, "Shhhh ..." It's almost the way you'd quiet a child and it's like she can't turn away, she just backs away and collapses against the wall. To this day, I don't think that type of moment—that precipice moment of "it could go either way"—has ever been done better.

Connor refrains from killing Dyson, but he doesn't survive their subsequent raid on Cyberdyne Systems. This sets up Sarah, John, and the T-800's climactic showdown with the T-1000 in a steel mill. The show-stopping sequence features Patrick's doomed alter ego getting frozen by dry ice, smashing into a million pieces, reforming from a mercury-like ooze, and morphing into several other characters—including the film's heroine. In its final moments, Schwarzenegger's character shows how far it's come by accepting its own termination.

Wisher: Linda Hamilton has a twin sister and she was used in one of the shots as Sarah; so they're both in the same frame.

Hamilton (to EW): They were going to use a process shot for the double, but they flew Leslie in and were delighted. We were shooting in freezing temperatures in a steel mill, and they had to wet us down. Leslie got a glimpse of how tough it can be to do this stuff.

Wisher: It's a lot simpler than having ILM go create you a CG Sarah.

Patrick: My memories of that are just walking and moving through the shots the way Jim wanted me to. It was beautifully lit. Our DP [Academy Award nominee Adam Greenberg] was phenomenal. All the sparks that were flying everywhere. And they were hitting my head, burning my scalp.

Furlong: It was a big emotional thing and I really wanted to do it. Because my hair was so long—it was really gross—I had a habit of chewing on it. And I just remember Jim came up to me with a pair of scissors and just cut my hair. He's like, "Stop chewing your hair."

Wisher: The whole thing is that Arnold, the longer he stays, the more he learns, the more he starts to become kind of human. There was a scene that was cut for the initial release where they took the CPU out of his head and turned the chip from read to write which meant he could learn. Jim covered it with an ADR line, off-screen: "The longer I stay, the more I can learn."

Cameron: It's real emotion. He's been built to emulate humans. At some point, the emulation becomes real.

Schwarzenegger: I've learned from this kid about human behavior to make me understand it more.

Morton: The monster sort of makes the ultimate sacrifice of giving his life in order to save humanity.

Wisher: Having him [lowered] into the molten steel was always there. The thumbs-up—I think Jim came up with that on set.

Schwarzenegger: Jim doesn't show emotions at all, so you would think that he wouldn't be able to write emotions. But he can. You see it over and over and he's just such an expert in little details. Me holding [Sarah's] hand or wiping [John's] tears, talking about, "I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do."

Cameron: People have always asked me, "Don't you ever want to just do those little films that are just actors in a room talking?" I say, "I make that little film every time I make a movie."

Schwarzenegger: It played so well in the test screening. People were just saying, "My favorite scene of the movie, the ending. It was so touching." So we knew that it was solid gold.

Cameron: He never really gets emotional, but the ending is very emotional. It's like when Iron Giant says "Superman." Come on, who doesn't cry when the Iron Giant says "Superman"?

Part 6: "The Whole Idea Is That There Is No Fate but What We Make for Ourselves."
By the summer of 1991, Terminator 2 was everywhere, an age-spanning pop culture explosion that served as a blueprint for every single mega-release that followed. There were fast food and soft drink tie-ins, trading cards, action figures, video games, and even a partnership with Guns N' Roses.

Cameron: The machinery at TriStar Sony is working and they're saying, "Well, we've got to do a music video." And so they go to Arnold—they didn't talk to me—and they say, "We want you in a music video with some act." Arnold says, "OK, look, if you're going to do a music video, you get the biggest band in the world. I don't even care who they are." They flip open Billboard: "Guns N' Roses makes sense. We've got a rose in the movie and bloody guns. Good, do it."

Schwarzenegger: We had a specific screening, it was just for us, the cast, James and myself, and Guns N' Roses. I think that Axl Rose was extremely impressed. I remember him going to Jim and saying, "I'm in."

Cooksey: We were just on set and someone had delivered another cassette tape to me. And it was "You Could Be Mine." And at that point I was pretty much the shit because I had an advance copy of at least one song off the new album, before it was out.

Cameron: I could see John listening to this, even though he's running around in a Public Enemy shirt.

Furlong: When I was 13, I had no idea what I was fucking listening to. I liked rock, but then I'd listen to Slick Rick. I've come to appreciate Guns N' Roses.

Schwarzenegger: [Stan Winston] subsequently directed the music video with Guns N' Roses.

Cameron: Arnold and Stan Winston got to be really, really good friends on that film. And then the three of us became this midlife crisis motorcycle club after that. We'd go out and ride our Harleys every Sunday.

The marketing machine behind Cameron's film built an almost impossible amount of hype. But unlike many big-budget extravaganzas, this one actually lived up to it. Released nationwide to rave reviews on July 3, 1991, T2 made $520.9 million worldwide to become the year's box office champ; for more than a decade, it was the highest-grossing R-rated movie of all time.

Muren's and Winston's teams won Oscars for visual effects and makeup. People incessantly quoted Schwarzenegger's most memorable lines, like, "I'll be back," and, "Hasta la vista, baby." Hamilton also became an iconic action hero; by that November she was hosting Saturday Night Live.

Naturally, the film's success supercharged the careers of the supporting cast, especially the instantly in-demand Furlong. It also launched the future governor of California and future Oscar-winning director into new stratospheres of fame and fortune; three years later they teamed up again on the action-comedy True Lies.

Kassar: We used VHS tapes in those days. And [Cameron] puts it on the screen in my office, and I see all the effects, the floor becoming the [T-1000]; the mercury man. And then, I said, "Oh, my God, this is going to be un-fucking-believable."

Muren: After that [movie], I really encouraged all the writers around to throw away everything and write with no restrictions in mind. Let's see what we can do.

Cameron: [ILM] were looking for the next thing to act as what I like to think of as the grand provocation, that thing which will bring in money within a defined period on a project basis to push the R&D to the next level. And I would submit that there wouldn't have been a Jurassic Park if Terminator 2 hadn't been the right impetus at that moment.

Muren: If we hadn't had Terminator 2, we wouldn't have been able to do Jurassic Park.

Morton: After I got the job, [Cameron] was talking about all the things the movie would do. I thought the only thing people would remember about this movie is, "Oh, my God. You see how [Schwarzenegger] shot him in the knee?" I went to the cast and crew screening and thought, "Oh, my God. This film has done everything he said he was going to do." I actually made a point of finding him before I left to tell him that.

Schwarzenegger: That screening went really well. Jim came over to me afterwards. "What did you think of it?" I said, "Oh, it is fantastic. This movie's going to be huge."

Cameron: Arnold, he becomes the biggest cheerleader for the film.

Cooksey: I went to the premiere. It was massive. Everything about that movie was just on this enormous scale.

Fiedel: It was a big deal. As opposed to the original Terminator, where everybody was sitting in there skeptical and actually laughed at the wrong times, and Jim looked pale as a ghost outside the theater when people were leaving.

Furlong: I remember asking my buddy, "Dude, I need to show up at the premiere with a chick. What should I do?" And then they were like, "You should get a hold of Punky Brewster, man." And I was like, "Yeah, man!" And I reached out to Soleil Moon Frye, and I was like, "Hey, will you go on this date with me to this movie?" And we became friends.

Patrick: It was a lot to take in. It was a lot to deal with. I wasn't ready for the celebrity part of it. I wasn't ready for all the recognition. No one can really prep you for that.

Morton: The joke in my household, for the longest time, was that it was the only movie I ever made.

Patrick: I remember being in Chicago and I was walking down the street, business guys were coming up to me: "T-1000! Do the walk, do the walk! Do the run, do the run! Do that thing with your arms!" Yeah. I've heard it all.

While Judgment Day was averted, the sequel spawned a television series and four more movies, the last of which, 2019's Terminator: Dark Fate, saw the return of Schwarzenegger, Hamilton, and Cameron as a producer. While the franchise is dormant for now, T2 remains as relevant as ever.

Cameron: I have been surprised at how well it holds up. The makes and models of some of the cars that get mowed down by various trucks look a little early '90s, which they are, of course. There is that one "Bad to the Bone" big guitar extravaganza at the beginning, but it doesn't really hinge much on pop culture.

Berkeley: It's one of those movies that people watch 50 times, and there's only a handful. People bought it on video cassette and watched it until the tape melted.

Patrick: You say to yourself, "Man, am I lucky that I have something that's recognizable. I'm so lucky that I have that until the day I die." I can honestly tell you as I get older what a nice compliment that is. "That guy over there still looks like the T-1000." It's not bad.

Furlong: My second name should be John Connor.

Schwarzenegger: Besides the line, "I'll be back," and those kinds of things, just the philosophy itself is good.

Cameron: It's almost, in a funny way, more germane now than it was when it came out because AI is now a real thing that we have to deal with, and then it was a fantasy like HAL 9000. There have been films that predicted the rise of AI, and the Terminator films just jumped on that bandwagon and made them into action movies.

Schwarzenegger: The whole idea is that there is no fate but what we make for ourselves. We don't have to say, "Well that's the way it's going to go." We have control over ourselves.

Cameron: Even if we win the fight for our existence against the rise of machines, how do we define ourselves? Now it's a real thing and a real concern and a real philosophical, existential question for the human race.

Schwarzenegger: We are in charge. We don't have to take this shit that's coming our way. We can go and create a future, the one that we want, which is a good future without those machines. We just have to fight for it.

Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: Fuzzy Dunlop on July 19, 2021, 07:01:26 AM
[youtube] https://youtu.be/2YWeJ22mIlE
Title: Re: JAMES CAMERON
Post by: WorldForgot on March 09, 2023, 07:05:06 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC63BPsx-1s