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| James Cameron appearing on Anderson Cooper's 360, aired over CNN on Thursday, June 22, 2023. |
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| James Cameron
with Jon Landau |
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Forecourt Ceremony held on Thursday, January 12, 2023
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Born: August 16, 1954, in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada
Age at the time of the ceremony: 68 |
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James Cameron is, perhaps, the most famous movie director working today. Head of a vast entertainment operation, Cameron has created many of the techniques employed in modern films, making his films technical marvels. He does not direct films often, but when he does — look out.
Born to an electrical engineer father and artist/nurse mother, Cameron's roots are Scottish. During his high school years, his family relocated to Brea, California. Classmates recall Cameron being interested in flying and underwater craft.
Enrolling at nearby Fullerton College to study physics in 1973, he changed his major to English, but dropped out after a year. Interested in the special effects employed in filmmaking, Cameron rattled around working odd jobs until the fatal day when he saw Star Wars in 1977. He quit being a truck driver. Getting into films was his goal now.
Working with Randall Frakes, the pair made a low-budget demo movie called Xenogenesis in 1978. The 12-minute short found its way to producer Roger Corman, who hired the pair to help with the effects on Battle Beyond the Stars (released in 1980) with Richard Thomas (and a script by John Sayles!). Cameron went from model maker to effects production designer.
Cameron is credited with being the Special Effects Director of Photography for Escape from New York (released in April 1981) with Kurt Russell, was production designer for Galaxy of Terror (released in October 1981) with Edward Albert, and had some sort of design role for Andriod (released in October 1982) with Klaus Kinski.
All of this training came in handy while doing special effects on an Italian flick, Piranha II: The Spawning (released in August 1982) when the producer Ovidio G. Assonitis fired the director Miller Drake. Cameron took over and signed the film. It bombed, but as Cameron's feature debut, it has since been re-discovered.
While in Rome working on the difficult shoot of Piraha, Cameron turned a bad dream into the script for The Terminator (released in October 1984); that wasn't his only good idea. He had it in mind to cast bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cybor! Audiences the world over loved the film and Cameron was suddenly in the Big Time.
Cameron was hired to write (from a story by someone else) a sequel to Sylvester Stallone's hit film First Blood. After turning it in, Sly re-wrote it. As filmed, Rambo: First Blood Part II, (released in May 1985) became a world-wide sensation.
Meanwhile, Cameron's then unproduced script for The Terminator and Rambo recommended him to the people putting together a sequel to Ridley Scott's Alien. Cameron wrote a treatment in three days in November 1983; after shooting The Terminator, he kept working on the Alien script. Ridley Scott claimed that he wasn't ever asked to work on a sequel; Hollywood accounting regarded Alien a flop. Say What??
A regime change at Fox and the release of The Terminator suddenly placed Cameron in the director's chair for Aliens (released in July 1986) with Sigourny Weaver. A whopping hit, Fox wrote him a blank check to make whatever he wanted: the result was The Abyss (released in August 1989) with Ed Harris.
Having started a production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, and beginning to exec produce other people's films, Cameron was enticed to make a sequel to The Terminator. With the biggest budget possible and never-before seen visual effects, how could Terminator 2: Judgement Day (released July 1991) with Arnold Schwarzenegger, miss? It didn't. T2 as it came to be called, is probably the most profound action film ever made. Oh, and it made buckets full of money.
After starting the effects company Digital Domain, Cameron wrote and directed True Lies (which played the Chinese in July 1994) with Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis. Cameron was now able to persue his dream project.
With (once again) the highest budget in Hollywood history, infighting at Digital Domain, and a second studio recruited to add more money, many industry people thought that Titanic (which had its U. S. Premiere at the Chinese and went on to play for 11 Weeks starting in December 1997) with Leonardo DiCaprio, would be a flop. The historical spectacle succeeded as show-biz, generating many repeated viewings by its devoted audiences. Cameron bagged Oscars for Best Picture with Jon Landau, Best Director and Best Film Editing shared with Conrad Buff IV and Richard A. Harris. King of the World indeed.
Left to his own devices, Cameron would probably make nature documentaries all the time. He began his post-Titanic era by shooting film about — the Titanic! The IMAX® 3D film Ghosts of the Abyss (released in March 2003) with Bill Paxton was followed by his co-directing the IMAX® documentary Aliens of the Deep (released in January 2005).
The unique 3D film Avatar (which had its U.S. Premiere at the Chinese on Wednesday, December 16, 2009) with Sam Worthington, combined several of Cameron's obsessions and became the top-grossing film in the world. It still is.
Since then, Cameron has participated in quite a number of documentaries and television programs, but finally got going on Avatar: The Way of Water (which played the Chinese in December 2022) with Sam Worthington. This film did so much business that more episodes are on their way. |
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| TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX®, Hollywood, California. James Cameron Forecourt block. Executed by unknown, Thursday, January 12, 2023. 31 x 24 inches. |
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| TCL Chinese Theatre IMAX®, Hollywood, California. James Cameron / Jon Landau Forecourt ceremony, Thursday, January 12, 2023. After putting his shoes back on, James Cameron dates the block. Nina Prommer/Milestone Photo. |
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