When James Cameron helped create an action movie as a favour to his wife
In 1990, James Cameron was a man on a mission. He’d finally been given the green light to write Terminator 2 when Carolco Pictures purchased the rights from producer Gale Anne Hurd. The only problem was that the studio set a release date of July 3rd, 1991, for the film before Cameron had even written a word of the script.
Ultimately, he had only seven weeks to write the sequel to his 1984 classic. As if that wasn’t enough, in the midst of this time crunch, Cameron’s wife, Kathryn Bigelow, was also searching for her next project. Then, a script about surfing bank robbers came across her desk. She knew it needed some work, though, so she asked her husband to pitch in – and then make some calls to ensure her project also got a green light.
In the late 1980s, filmmaker Rick King read a newspaper article that sparked an idea in his mind. He told Hidden Films, “Los Angeles at that time was sort of Bank Robbery Central because you could rob a bank and then jump on the freeway. So, there was a huge bank robbing problem, which is, of course, an FBI thing.” Around this time, King was also learning how to surf, and as he sat on a beach in Malibu looking out over the water, inspiration struck him like a lightning bolt.
“I thought, ‘Surfers who rob banks,'” revealed King. “‘And an FBI agent that’s a good athlete that goes undercover among those surfers.'” From that point, the story unspooled as if it was writing itself, and the arc of the FBI agent “liking the guys he’s trying to bust more than who he’s working for” made perfect sense. He mused, “I always thought of it as ‘Tom Cruise Joins the FBI.'”
King enlisted screenwriter W Peter Iliff to help him write the script. It was Iliff who added the idea that the bank robbers would wear masks of old Presidents of the United States when they pulled jobs and that their leader would be a Buddhist. Soon, a director came on board the project – Ridley Scott. According to King, he “spent as much in pre-production as I spend on a film,” but ultimately decided not to do the movie. The project then fell into limbo for a few years until Cameron and Bigelow picked it up.
In King’s recollection, the movie was given a new lease of life because “Cameron loved the script and wanted to sponsor Kathryn Bigelow, who was either his wife or girlfriend back then.” The idea that Cameron wanted to hand his wife a feature film as a favour seems a bit of a reductive take, but in ’91, Cameron did claim that he was instrumental in it getting made. He stressed, “She basically is 100% responsible for the final film,” but added, “I mean, I made a few phone calls, but I was kind of busy myself.”
In truth, it makes sense that Cameron would have been key in helping Bigelow, whom he married in ’89, get the movie made. After all, he was one of the biggest directors in Hollywood at that point, having come off The Terminator, Aliens, and The Abyss in a five-year period in the ’80s. Bigelow was on the rise thanks to 1987’s Near Dark and 1990’s Blue Steel, but she didn’t yet have the same clout as her husband.
When Cameron came on board, one of the first things he altered concerned the masks the robbers wore. In the script, the gang was known as the “Dead Presidents”, and they wore masks of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and Ulysses S Grant. Cameron felt the public wouldn’t recognise a couple of these presidents, but if the name was changed to “Ex-Presidents” and they wore masks of more recent heads of state, that problem would go away. He reportedly quipped, “Having George Washington in the bank is not as cool as Nixon or Reagan.”
In the end, Cameron was credited as an Executive Producer on the project, which was known as Johnny Utah and Riders on the Storm in the script stage. However, he didn’t end up with script credit despite allegedly writing the final draft, which dramatically increased the stakes and action. He claimed, “I did a considerable amount of writing on the shooting draft of the script with Kathryn, even though we haven’t received credit, which is an issue that I have with the Writers Guild.”
Amazingly, Cameron reportedly wrapped up his final draft of Bigelow’s movie only 36 hours before Terminator 2’s script was officially announced at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival. He has claimed his final pass of Terminator in that incredibly tight timeframe was fuelled entirely by coffee and a lack of sleep.
It would only be at the halfway point of filming that the movie would gain the title now beloved by action fans all over the world: Point Break. In a ’91 interview with The Los Angeles Times, Cameron praised his then-wife for her work on the movie, saying, “There was a time when she felt that she was the student and I was the mentor, which was totally wrong. She was always a great director. That was just in her psychology. Now, fortunately, she’s gotten past that and realises she’s as good as I am. Probably better.”
Ultimately, Point Break came out only nine days after Terminator 2: Judgement Day, and even though it wasn’t an unprecedented behemoth like Cameron’s film, it did almost quadruple its budget at the box office. Sadly, though, Cameron and Bigelow divorced only four months after the action classic he helped her shepherd into existence was released.
