For many fans of James Cameron’s filmography, the idea of him toiling away at “Avatar” films for the rest of his career is a bit of a bummer. This is a guy who has done nothing but make iconic films, and many would love to see what he can do with a non-“Avatar” film project again. Thankfully, it looks like that may happen soon.
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According to Deadline, James Cameron has landed the film rights to Charles Pellegrino‘s forthcoming book “Ghosts of Hiroshima.” And the report claims that Cameron will use that book, as well as previously released book, “Last Train From Hiroshima,” for the basis of a new film he’s calling “Last Train from Hiroshima.”
The film will tell the incredible true story of a man who survived the bomb blast in Hiroshima and boarded a train to Nagasaki. He then survived another bomb blast at Nagasaki. And for Cameron, it’s a deeply emotional film considering he actually met the subject of the stories.
“It’s a subject that I’ve wanted to do a film about, that I’ve been wrestling with how to do it, over the years,” Cameron said. “I met Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just days before he died. He was in the hospital. He was handing the baton of his personal story to us, so I have to do it. I can’t turn away from it.”
Unfortunately, it’s still unclear when we might see ‘Last Train’ go into production. The report claims that Cameron will tackle the project once there is a window of time in his ‘Avatar’ work. So, it could be soon, or it could be years from now. Thankfully, this is clearly a project he is passionate about, so the idea that Cameron wouldn’t make it for a while doesn’t seem likely.
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Now, there might be folks who read this and think about the film “Oppenheimer” and get excited. If Christopher Nolan can make an atomic bomb movie into a big-budget epic, then who knows what James Cameron could do with that. However, what’s clear from Cameron’s statement, as well as the subject matter, ‘Last Train’ seems like it would be a much more humanistic story than Nolan’s film. But we’ll have to wait and see if that is true or not.