James Cameron sacrificed everything to make “Avatar,” even this sci-fi film he worked on for several years

News culture James Cameron sacrificed everything to make “Avatar,” even this sci-fi film he worked on for several years

James Cameron has always been a big fan of science fiction films. Aliens, The Abyss, Terminator, Terminator 2 and of course Avatar, the 69-year-old director has almost made it his specialty. In the 90s, another feature film in this genre would be added to his career…before he decides to give up everything to focus on Avatar.

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A science fiction film from the 60s that has become cult over time

Since the 1960s, one science fiction film, despite the small cult status it acquired over time, has been thematized in numerous variations: Fantastic Voyage. Directed by Richard Fleischer in 1966, we follow the adventures of a team of five scientists who are miniaturized and injected into a scientist’s body to operate on him… from the inside out. But obviously not everything will go as planned, as they only have an hour to save him, while a Machiavellian saboteur thwarts their plans in the context of the Cold War.

The film quickly gained a small cult following, particularly because Isaac Asimov, the famous science fiction author, adapted it into a novel that same year. Out of, The concept of a feature film has been varied several times and we are sure that you are already familiar with this tone. Apart from a 17-episode animated series, the most famous adaptation obviously remains the 1987 remake entitled “The Adventure Within” directed by Joe Dante (Gremlins, Howls, Les Banlieusards…). In 1984, 18 years after the release of the original film, Isaac Asimov was contacted to write a sequel novel entitled Destination Cerveau, published in 1987. The latter was intended to be adapted for the cinema, but the project ultimately never saw the light of day. But the story doesn’t end there.

A remake is stuck in development hell

In the 1990s, James Cameron loves the 1966 film and dreams of making a more modern version. We know by 1997 at the latest that the director, who was crowned with the success of “Titanic,” worked on this film for a long time until a script seemed to be ready. But from one day to the next, He loses interest in focusing on what will become his life project: Avatar. Despite this turn of events, the remake is not yet dead and buried, as the script was entrusted by Fox to Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After, Godzilla…) in 2007. Not being a fan of Cameron’s script, he abandoned the project to work on his famous disaster film “2012.”

When screenwriters Cormac and Marianne Wibberley took over the script to rewrite it between 2007 and 2008, The screenwriters’ strike in Hollywood during this time further delayed the project, which landed in so-called development hell.

. In the world of cinema, it is an expression that denotes a project that does not come to fruition despite numerous paraphrases. Since then, several directors have replaced each other at the helm of the production without anything really happening. Result, The project would now be in the hands of Guillermo del Toro which already has a thousand productions at the same time. In other words, we’re not ready to see a Fantastic Voyage remake on the big screen just yet.