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

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

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

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A sci-fi film from the 60s that has become cult over time

Since the 1960s, a science fiction film has been the subject of numerous variations in the face of the small cult status that it has adopted over time: Fantastic Voyage. Directed by Richard Fleischer in 1966, we follow the adventures of a team of five scientists who find themselves miniaturized and injected into the body of a scientist in order to operate on him… from the inside. But obviously, everything is not going to go as planned because they only have one hour to save him while a Machiavellian saboteur is going to put a spoke in their wheels in a Cold War context.

Quickly, the film achieved its small cult status, notably because Isaac Asimov, famous science fiction author, adapted it into a novel the same year. From, the concept of a feature film has been the subject of several variations and we are sure that this pitch is already familiar to you. Beyond a 17-episode animated series, the best-known adaptation obviously remains the 1987 remake called 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 and published in 1987. While the latter was to be adapted for cinema, the project ultimately never saw the light of day. But the story does not end there.

A remake stuck in development hell

In the 1990s, James Cameron is passionate about the 1966 film and dreams of making a more modern version. At least around 1997, we know that the director then crowned with the success of Titanic worked for a long time on this film to the point that a script seemed to be ready. But from one day to the next, he loses interest in it to focus on what will become the project of his life: Avatar. Despite this turnaround, the remake is not dead and buried since the script was entrusted in 2007 by Fox to Roland Emmerich (Independence Day, The Day After, Godzilla…). Not a fan of Cameron’s script, he in turn abandoned the project to work on 2012, his famous disaster film.

If the screenwriters Cormac and Marianne Wibberley took over the script to retype it between 2007 and 2008, the screenwriters’ strike in Hollywood during this period further delayed the project, which entered what was called Development Hell.. In the world of cinema, it is an expression which designates a project which fails to materialize despite numerous rewrites. Since then, several directors have succeeded one another at the head of 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 are not ready to see a remake of Fantastic Voyage on the big screen.