Last night, James Cameron was the guest of honor of La Cinemateque in Paris, where he conducted a masterclass session after the screening of his 1984 classic, “The Terminator.”
During the Q&A, the ‘Avatar’ filmmaker gave an update on a long-gestating passion project of his, a remake of “Fantastic Voyage,” and he’s saying that it’s coming “very soon”:
We’ve been developing it for a number of years, and we plan to go ahead with it very soon. Raquel Welch is not available, but we think we can make a pretty good movie.
Welch starred in the 1966 original sci-fi adventure which had a scientist discovering technology that can miniaturize matter by shrinking humans. Cameron has been attached to this project since the late 90s, and, in 2016, hired Guillermo del Toro to direct.
Cameron did get as far as writing a screenplay, but after completing “Titanic”, his mind began to concentrate on “Avatar.” Del Toro still hasn’t given up on it — he reaffirmed his interest three years ago. Last year, he had mentioned that his next two films, after “Dr. Frankenstein,” which is currently in production, would be the animated ‘Buried Giant’, and an unnamed live-action effort. Maybe the latter was “Fantastic Voyage”?
Meanwhile, Cameron will likely not be directing ‘Fantastic Voyage’ — he’s knee deep in ‘Avatar’ In a new interview with Le Figaro, Cameron says he’s not quitting Avatar. He plans to “continue working on the franchise until 2031.”
If there is any non-Avatar project that Cameron might direct then it could be "The Last Train From Hiroshima.” Last year, Cameron expressed interest in shooting ‘Hiroshima’ after he completes ‘Avatar 3.’ Back in 2010, Cameron had optioned Charles Pellegrino's nonfiction book "The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back." He put up his own money to get the option.
Cameron will be 76 by the time time the fifth Avatar is released in theaters. The good news here is that it sounds like he won’t be directing 6 and 7, he’ll be “passing the baton” to another filmmaker, or so he says. He’ll probably still have a major say in them.
The Canadian-born filmmaker started working on the first “Avatar” movie in 1999. From a filmmaking standpoint, it’s all he’s been concentrating on since then. This means that Cameron has almost exclusively been in ‘Avatar’ mode for 25 years.
Criterion's December lineup has some great additions to the library, but the title that jumped out at me is Werner Herzog's "Grizzly Man," which officially joins the Collection on December 8.