The movie James Cameron wanted to delete from history: “I had no legal power”
The history of Hollywood would look incredibly different if James Cameron had never decided to become a filmmaker. The director has helmed various projects over the years that have become more than just popular movies, but worldwide sensations, earning him plenty of acclaim and financial success in the process.
His early sci-fi beginnings were incredibly impactful, with The Terminator exploring artificial intelligence in a way that still feels resonant today. Balancing the film with themes of human preservation and the dangers of rapid technological advancements, the movie became a classic, still quoted by many fans. With the sequel, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Cameron continued to assert his place in cinema as one of the most necessary figures.
However, his 1997 blockbuster Titanic was a massive turning point for the director. It was a feat of filmmaking that saw Cameron journey to the bottom of the ocean to capture footage of the real Titanic wreckage and study the disaster. He then made use of extensive sets and directed countless extras as the crew recreated the disaster on both large and small-model scales. The finished result was an emotional and epic romantic disaster movie that scooped up 11 Oscars and has earned a place in cinema history as a legendary piece of filmmaking.
With Avatar, Cameron proved his ambitiousness as a filmmaker by designing a whole new world and creating his own language, fully dedicating himself to the project. It became the highest-grossing film of all time upon its release in 2009, helping to push Cameron further up the ranks of cinematic acclaim.
Yet, before these heralded movies, Cameron found himself in the director’s chair of a movie that people don’t exactly hold to the same level of genius – Piranha II: The Spawning. The movie acted as the sequel to 1978’s Piranha, with Cameron replacing the director hired for the sequel by executive producer Ovidio G. Assonitis.
The movie was negatively reviewed, and Cameron often pretends that it wasn’t his first film. In an interview with Kenneth Turan, Cameron revealed that he is “ambivalent about it.”
He continued, “Technically, I have a credit as the director on that film. However, I was replaced after two-and-a-half weeks by the Italian producer. He just fired me and took over, which is what he wanted to do when he hired me. It wasn’t until much later that I even figured out what had happened.”
“It was like, ‘Oh, man, I thought I was doing a good job.’ But when I saw what they were cutting together, it was horrible. And then the producer wouldn’t take my name off the picture because [contractually] they couldn’t deliver it with an Italian name. So they left me on, no matter what I did. I had no legal power to influence him from Pomona, California, where I was sleeping on a friend’s couch. I didn’t even know an attorney,” Cameron elucidated.
So, while Cameron contributed to the film, he didn’t “feel it was my first movie”. The filmmaker also doesn’t believe he “should have to take the lumps. I used it as a credit when it did me some good, which was to get Terminator. Subsequently, I dropped it. I think that makes sense. What the heck. There’s no truth but what we make.”
