Acclaimed filmmaker James Cameron has shared the one movie in his stacked discography that he found ‘pretty cringeworthy’ on reflection.
The 70-year-old writer-director is the man behind some of the biggest box office hits of all time including the ongoing Avatar franchise, Titanic and Aliens but even the greatest talents among us are their own worst self-critics.
Taking it all the way back to where it began, James didn’t mince his words as he marked the 40th anniversary of his breakout feature – The Terminator – starring Arnold Schwarzenegger as a cyborg assassin.
At this point, James was still a relatively unknown creative in the film industry with a modest budget and a dream. And boy did it pay off, grossing $78million (£58million) worldwide (not bad for a $6.4million budget) and launching a majorly successful six-film franchise.
In a new interview, however, James opened up about his mixed feelings towards the film that started it all.
‘I don’t think of it as some Holy Grail, that’s for sure. I look at it now and there are parts of it that are pretty cringe-worthy, and parts of it that are like, “Yeah, we did pretty well for the resources we had available,”‘ he explained.
He specifically pointed to the ‘production value’ as the aspect that seeded the doubts – rather than anything else like the dialogue.
He continued to Empire magazine: ‘I don’t cringe on any of the dialogue, but I have a lower cringe factor than, apparently, a lot of people do around the dialogue that I write.
‘You know what? Let me see your three-out-of-the-four-highest-grossing films – then we’ll talk about dialogue effectiveness,’ he added to his harshest critics.
Despite his mixed feelings about the film, he did confirm it was ‘near and dear’ to his heart because it was his first directing gig.
Although he admitted that Arnold, 77, was not who he imagined for the gig he is grateful he decided to take a gamble on him.
‘I’m proud of the fact that we weren’t stuck enough to not be able to see how it could work with Arnold, because it wasn’t our vision,’ he shared, saying that the film ‘would have been nothing’ without the actor.
In fact, in a recent interview, Arnold shared that he managed to steal the role from the late OJ Simpson after he was originally cast as Reese.
‘It was actually OJ Simpson that was the first cast Terminator,’ he said, per the Mirror.
‘Then somehow [James] felt that he was not as believable for a killing machine. So then they hired me. That’s really what happened.’
Arnold is not the first actor in one of James’ major movies to almost miss out on the gig before becoming irrevocably associated with the character.
The filmmaker recently revealed that he almost didn’t cast Kate Winslet as Rose in Titanic opposite Leonardo DiCaprio – a role that went on to land her an Oscar nomination.
According to James, he was put off by her past in period dramas such as Sense and Sensibility and Hamlet.
‘It seemed like lazy casting,’ he told Variety.
‘But then wiser heads prevailed, and I could see what everybody was talking about. She’s very alive. She comes into a room with a great deal of confidence, and she’s got that spark of life.’
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