In the coming years, we’ll either be treated to the most epic line-up of science fiction sequels of all-time or discover that, thanks to some creative bookkeeping, James Cameron’s new fleet of luxury yachts are named Avatars 2 through 5. And though he’s certainly made some of the most successful, imaginative movies of the past several decades, James Cameron is also a goddamn maniac.
And perhaps it takes a certain madness to create masterpieces like The Terminator, Aliens, and that erotic Smurf slash fiction remake of FernGully. So let’s take a moment to celebrate Cameron — not for his actual filmmaking, but for his unrivalled behind the scenes lunacy, such as how …
He Only Made Titanic So Someone Else Would Pay For His Diving Hobby
As we’ve mentioned previously, the production of the Oscar-winning Titanic was about as smooth as sandpaper-flavored moonshine brewed by Tom Waits. What gave James Cameron the idea to make a movie about the ill-fated cruise? Well, it turns out that Cameron’s inspiration wasn’t purely out of a desire to honor those who tragically died/boned in the back of a stranger’s car during the historic accident — he mainly wanted a studio to fund his dive to the real-life disaster site. Cameron, a diving obsessive, later claimed: “I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie.”
So for the modern-day scenes exploring the sunken boat, Cameron convinced the studio not to use “elaborate models” or CGI and let him do it for real, siphoning off the difference in cost from the marketing budget because Cameron thought it would be such a “publicity coup.” So 20th Century Fox funded Cameron’s dive before he’d even figured out what the hell Titanic would be about.
And shooting the real-life ship was a truly insane undertaking that necessitated the invention of an entirely new type of camera rig that could withstand the pressures of undersea filming. Cameron, aboard a Mir submarine, made repeated dives to the bottom of the Ocean where Titanic lay — and it didn’t always go well. According to Cameron, the first time was “a cluster f*ck.” One dive almost ended in tragedy when Cameron’s Mir was caught in a storm and lost power. Thankfully, they were able to make it to the surface, and Cameron was able to successfully pull off filming the section of the movie nobody really cares about or remembers.
He Insisted on Some Truly Insane Practical Effects in the ‘90s
Before he pivoted to making movies about CGI cat-people who live on screensaver planets, Cameron often made some obsessively weird calls for the sake of realism. For example in Terminator 2: Judgement Day, there’s a scene in which the T-1000 flies a helicopter under an overpass. How did they pull it off? By actually flying a helicopter under an overpass.
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