James Cameron is, in case it has escaped your attention, the most successful filmmaker in history. The Canadian director hadn’t exactly been starved for box-office smashes early in his career, but his last two films, “Titanic” and “Avatar,” have hauled in nearly $5 billion between them, and are currently the number one and number two hits of all time. He’s also the man behind the “Terminator” franchise, helmed one of the best-liked of the “Alien” series, has become a deep-sea explorer, and, uh, gave the world flying piranhas.
This week sees “Titanic” back on screens in post-converted 3D form, and given that we’re still at least two years away from seeing the filmmaker’s next work (“Avatar 2” and “Avatar 3” are currently targeted for around 2014/2015), it seemed like a good opportunity to look back on his career and see how he went from a visual effects whiz on “Escape From New York” to the titan he is today. And you can catch “Titanic 3D” in theaters from Friday, April 6th.
“Piranha II: The Spawning” (1981)
When “Piranha 3DD” hits theaters later in the summer, it might be worth noting the name of director John Gulager. After all, the last time someone made the sequel to an exploitation movie about the pint-sized fish killers, they grew up to become James Cameron. And the good news for Gulager is, no matter how bad his film turns out, it’s still likely to be better than Cameron’s “Piranha II: The Spawning.” But then again, it’s not fair to blame Cameron for it either. While the film is technically his directorial debut (at the age of only 27), the truth is more complex: Cameron was hired to replace original director Miller Drake on the sequel to Joe Dante‘s 1978 “Jaws” rip-off, but was fired by producer Ovidio Assontis after two-and-a-half weeks, according to the helmer. Only years later was Cameron able to put together his own edit, which emerged on home video release in some territories, and while his version marks an improvement, you can’t polish a turd, and it’s a Z-grade monster movie of the worst order. To his credit, Cameron’s never pretended it’s anything other than the kind, mostly disowning the picture, but it’s at least intriguing to see him work with frequent favorite Lance Henriksen for the first time, and to see the slightest hints of the director he would become. But for the most part, we’d rather go swimming with actual flying piranhas than watch this one again. [F]