James Cameron has been sucked up by the 3D virtual reality that is Pandora and, by all accounts, he doesn’t mind staying there for the rest of his career.
However, he’s telling the Los Angeles Times that, after he’s completed “Avatar 3,” he might direct a long-gestating passion project of his called "The Last Train From Hiroshima.”
While "A3" is topmost in mind for the filmmaker, he hopes to take time before "Avatar 4" to direct a pet project, "The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back," based on the book by author Charles R. Pellegrino. Research included an interview with the late Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only known survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.
"We live in a more precarious world than we thought we did," says Cameron, reflecting on the war in Ukraine and resurgent nationalism. "I think the Hiroshima film would be as timely as ever, if not more so. It reminds people what these weapons really do when they're used against human targets."
Cameron will be 70 years old by the time the third ‘Avatar’ movie gets released. He’s not getting any younger, it would be great to see him tackle this material.
Back in 2010, Cameron had optioned Charles Pellegrino's nonfiction book "The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back." Cameron put up his own money to get the option.
‘Last Train’ takes place "over two days and weaves together eyewitness accounts of the Japanese civilians and American pilots who experienced the atomic explosions firsthand."
The Canadian director started working on the first “Avatar” movie around 1999/2000. From a filmmaking standpoint, it’s all he’s been concentrating on since then. That means that by 2027, Cameron would have almost exclusively worked on these damn ‘Avatar’ movies for nearly 30 years.
I’m not saying it’s a waste of time, he seems to be genuinely passionate about these movies and, more importantly, the sequel is making boatloads of money. However, from my point of view, as someone who was thrilled to no ends by Cameron’s visual miracles in “The Terminator,” “T2,” “Aliens,” and “Titanic,” I can’t help but hope he distances himself from Pandora and makes ‘Hiroshima.’