The greatest movies never made: James Cameron’s ‘The Informationist’
With each passing year it becomes more and more likely that James Cameron is never going to direct anything ever again that isn’t an Avatar sequel, which is undoubtedly a loss to cinema.
The first two instalments ranking as the first and third highest-grossing films in history does indicate that audiences remain every bit as invested in the world of Pandora as its creator does, but the downside is that Cameron won’t be applying his signature flourishes to anything other than blockbuster sci-fi featuring big blue aliens.
Even if the filmmaker did outline his intentions to diversify—which he’s done a couple of times already—the fact that he’s only helmed two features since 1997 ensures it’s no guarantee he’d ever get around to it. A tantalising case in point is The Informationist, the adaptation of Taylor Stevens’ acclaimed bestselling novel that Cameron signed on to produce and direct.
As the first book in a series it carried franchise potential, too, and the protagonist was tailor-made for a recurring Cameron motif. While he hasn’t abandoned his plans entirely, there’s one decisive deal-breaker that makes it very unlikely he’ll ever find the time to call action on a dramatic thriller that would take him into uncharted territory solely by virtue of being realistic.
Never in his life has Cameron directed a modern-day story that wasn’t in the least bit fantastical, with creature feature debut Piranha II: The Spawning, underwater sci-fi The Abyss, and tongue-in-cheek caper True Lies the only three of his movies to unfold in the time period in which they were made. Needless to say, authenticity was hardly the order of the day in any of them.
When The Informationist was first announced, Cameron celebrated protagonist Vanessa Michael Munroe as “an intriguing and compelling heroine with an agile mind and a thirst for adventure,” with plans to make it his next project after he’d finished up the Avatar sequels. However, that was in October 2012 when he hadn’t thought much further ahead than a trilogy.
The current plan is for Avatar to span at least five entries and potentially as many as seven films. With Cameron already into his 70s, it’s best not to expect The Informationist to actually come together. This is a shame because it would be the perfect vehicle for the filmmaker to add yet another compelling female hero into a collection of ass-kicking and idealistic icons.
This is the guy who steered Sigourney Weaver to an Academy Award nomination for ‘Best Actress’ in Aliens, directed Jamie Lee Curtis to a Golden Globe win in True Lies, and reinvented Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor from a shy and retiring ingenue into a battle-hardened warrior ready to single-handedly stave off the extinction of the human race.
The character of Munroe earned comparisons to Stieg Larsson’s Lisbeth Salander when The Informationist was first published in 2011, and even the broad pitch of ‘James Cameron does The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo‘ is more than enough to illustrate why it should be rued as among the ones that got away.
Munroe was raised in Cameron by American missionaries, joining a gun-running crew of mercenaries at the age of only 14. In her current guise, she works as an information specialist with a keen interest in Central Africa, before she’s hired by a billionaire oil magnate to track down and retrieve his daughter, who’d gone missing four years previously.
As often tends to be the case, Munroe’s investigation leads her straight back into the ghosts of a past she’d thought left behind, leaving her isolated, betrayed, and with nobody to rely on but herself. Effectively, it’s an international action thriller trading in the emotional baggage of childhood trauma, how the sins of an earlier life can never truly be escaped, and the unusual roads that can be taken towards seeking redemption.
The prospect of Cameron forsaking his technological bells and whistles in favour of telling a lean, mean, and propulsive character-driven piece that would have forced him to rely on his technical virtuosity like never before without the crutch of spectacle to lean on, never mind one with the potential to add yet another formidable heroine to his filmography, would mark both a challenge and a change of pace.
The door hasn’t been entirely closed, but at the most optimistic, it’s going to be a very long way away if he’s holding off on The Informationist until Avatar is over.
