Written, Edited & Compiled by: Lee Fenton
-James Cameron was born in Kapuskasing, Ontario.
-His films have earned over 8 billion in total gross sales (worldwide).
-James Cameron is one of the most prolific directors of our lifetime.
-His net worth is in excess of 800 million, which makes him the 4th richest director in the world.
-Some of his biggest (and most culturally relevant) releases include ‘Titanic’, ‘Aliens’, ‘Avatar’, ‘Avatar 2: The Way of Water’, ‘Terminator 2’, ‘Terminator’, and ‘The Abyss’.
-James Cameron’s style is bombastic. His pictures tend to incorporate massive set pieces, cutting-edge special effects, and big name actors/actresses.
-In the 90s he almost made a Spider-man film starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the web-slinger and Schwarzenegger as “Spidey’s” many-limbed foe Dr. Octopus.
-His country of birth is Canada.
-James Cameron has helped to revolutionize the special effects industry, and is seen as one of the most important progenitors of modern science fiction.
-His ability for visual composition is among the top of mainstream Hollywood directors.
– Most who know James Cameron can attest to the fact that his dedication to the craft is bar none. He expects his cast & crew to exhibit the same amount of vigor for filmmaking as he does.
-He managed to get real US Air Force jets for ‘True Lies’ at a rock bottom price.
-Cameron was hired by Sylvester Stallone to write a sequel to Rambo: First Blood. This script was eventually revised by Stallone and released as First Blood: Part II.
-James Cameron has four siblings, two sisters and two brothers.
-A hallmark of Cameron’s films are his airborne vehicles; all of which seem to behave like helicopters regardless of their actual concept. The front end (nose) dips forward before moving; style over substance.
-His visual style is one that often encompasses burgeoning technology displayed with a traditional filmmaking palette.
-There was a thirteen year gap between ‘Avatar’ and its much hyped sequel ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’. Both these films pioneered the modern advancements in 3D filming and CGI Motion capture.
-’The Terminator’ franchise is highly regarded as one of the largest pop-culture juggernauts in sci-fi film and television.
-James Cameron is a proponent of tackling climate change, as evidenced by his founding of Plant Power Taskforce
“Cameron is passionately involved in sustainability issues, having founded the Avatar Alliance Foundation to take action on climate change, energy policy, deforestation, indigenous rights, ocean conservation and animal agriculture. He has campaigned for indigenous peoples in their struggle against encroaching industrialization in Brazil and Canada. His production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, installed a 1-megawatt solar array on the roofs of their soundstages at Manhattan Beach Studios, to offset the power used during the production of the Avatar sequels. Cameron also designed the solar Sun Flower, a sculptural solar array that tracks the sun and is installed at MUSE School. At the Camerons’ farms in Canada and New Zealand, Cameron and his wife, Suzy Amis Cameron, are developing new methods for organic, ecological farming, including planting one of the largest food forests in the world.” [2] PlantPowerTaskforce.org
-On the set of ‘The Abyss’ Cameron was so intent on getting believable underwater shots that he implemented state of the art and somewhat experimental filmmaking techniques in the process. This allowed ‘The Abyss’ to be the first movie that was actually filmed in completely submerged locations, requiring the actors to wear diving suits, undergo lengthy periods of little to no oxygen, and in the end – this style of filming traumatized more than a few of his principal leads.
One of the few things he [Ed Harris[ said about it was “Asking me how I was treated on ‘The Abyss’ is like asking a soldier how he was treated in Vietnam.” Similarly, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio said, “‘The Abyss’ was a lot of things. Fun to make was not one of them.”
“During the rigorous and problematic shoot, the cast and crew began calling the film by various derogatory names such as “Son Of Abyss”, “The Abuse” and “Life’s Abyss And Then You Dive”. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio reportedly suffered a physical and emotional breakdown because she was pushed so hard on the set, and Ed Harris had to pull over his car at one time while driving home, because he burst into spontaneous crying.” [1] IMDb.com
Now all of this may seem a little extreme, yet may I remind you that one of the most respected directors of all time, Stanley Kubrick, had the reputation of being unduly hard on his actors as well. Kubrick often demanded on average 30 takes (or more) from his actors — in Tom Cruise’s case more than 70 takes were required on the set of ‘Eyes Wide Shut’. Rumour has it that Kubrick reached the insane amount of 127 takes in ‘The Shining’.
That explains a lot about Jack Nicholson’s “unhinged” performance…
However, Kubrick and Cameron are not the exception, but the rule — through the ages there have been countless injuries and even fatalities of actors, stunt people, and crew; this is simply a by-product of Hollywood – any who are involved in dangerous filmmaking endeavours have at least some understanding of the risks involved.
No doubt James Cameron is a visionary – thankfully, none of his later films would require the amount of personal sacrifice from the actors and crew that ‘The Abyss’ did.
-James Cameron has a Twitter (X) account but he has not used it since 2022.
-He is only a Canadian citizen NOT a citizen of the USA.
“But Cameron remains an exclusively Canadian citizen; he tore up his last application for U.S. citizenship in protest over the 2004 re-election of U.S. President George W. Bush. “I’m Canadian, motherf—-r,” is how Cameron described his citizenship during a 2012 appearance on U.S. late night television” [3] NationalPost.com
-James Cameron shot ‘Titanic’, “Aliens of the Deep’, and both ‘Avatar’ films on IMAX.
The IMAX cinema projection standards were developed by Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroiterr, Robert Kerr, and William C. Shaw in the 1960’s and 70s. These were also the founders of the corresponding IMAX corporation.
Since it was a company based in Canada – the first IMAX cinema was constructed in Ontario Place, Toronto
-He studied physics at a community college.
-Cameron’s super obscure directorial debut is a film by the name of ‘Xenogenesis’ (1978).
-In 1999, after ‘Titanic’ proved to be a big hit – James Cameron pitched the idea for ‘Avatar’ to every major studio; none of them wanted to touch a film that had such a bloated budget (400 million). Thus, ‘Avatar’ was shelved for a full decade (before becoming the smash success that it is today).
-Cameron always wanted to do a third Terminator film, but for a myriad of reasons it never became a viable option.
-Avatar: The Way of Water is either the second highest budget or the first, competing with Star Wars: The Force Awakens. (SW:TFA has a reported net budget of 447 million, while Avatar 2 is anywhere between 350 m – 460 m)
-James Cameron has worked various regular jobs, from a highschool custodian to a truck driver.
-Rebecca Keegan wrote an autobiography on James Cameron in 2009 tilted: “The Futurist: The Life and Films of James Cameron”
-A monumental Canadian filmmaker, James Cameron inspires his fellow countrymen and all those across the globe who love (and treasure) cinema as an artform.
-He strives for excellence and almost always attains it.
-James Cameron brings a complete vision to his projects, allowing the filmmaking process to be preparatory while maintaining an organic creativity.
-James Cameron is sixty-nine years old.
-James Cameron has won 3 Academy Awards – one for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Film Editing. All of these Oscar wins were for ‘Titanic’ – 1998.
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Sources:
[1]https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096754/trivia/?item=tr1052612
[2]https://plantpowertaskforce.org/people/james-cameron/
[3]https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/why-avatar-is-not-considered-canadian-by-ottawa#:~:text=But%20Cameron%20remains%20an%20exclusively,on%20U.S.%20late%20night%20television.
