Hey folks, Harry here with... well this isn't really that much news, just word that Cameron is prepping to shoot another documentary undersea. However, this is different, this time he's seeking life instead of the ghosts of men at the bottom of the sea. Here's Terry with the scoop...
Harry,
I'm a dockworker here in Southern Florida. Please, no "On The Waterfront" jokes. It is typically a boring thankless job, but its the sort of job you never lose, unless your just plain unlucky. I was lucky today though. Ordinary days, I see sweat and swearing, but today I saw James Cameron and he's in town getting things all together for his next documentary. I asked some people he talked with what he was doing, the word is Cameron is not doing Titanic again or another boat, but something to do with underwater volcanoes at the very bottom of the ocean. Sounds boring to me, but maybe it is exciting to you. You like weird shit sometimes. That trailer you linked to about Car Accidents and dead people in car crashes was fucked up, but you liked that. Maybe this will get you excited too.
I want to see Cameron making real movies again. This stuff hasn't got anything to do with why I like him. Anyway, I guess this means he isn't making another real movie anytime soon. Fuck.
Terry Malloy
Thanks Terry, you definitely coulda been a contender. Anyway... Like I said, this doesn't tell us much, but with a bit of poking around and sleuthing I think I've got a better idea of what is going on with him at the ocean floor. I don't think he's doing underwater volcanoes, but a thing called Hydrothermal Vents. In some interview that Cameron gave around the time of GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS, he mentioned wanting to do a documentary about the life found around those... So is this cool?
Well, if you go online and check out the sites on Hydrothermal Vent exploration and the life around the Black Smokers, you'll see and read about some weird as hell lifeforms and geologic formations that are out of this world. These are exactly the sort of bizarre lifeforms that may exist on Mars (which btw, is getting really really close to us in the next few weeks... WATCH THE SKIES!) Lifeforms like nothing else on the planet. Things that live in toxic chemicals with zero sunlight, breaking down poisons into life. There's a whole alien eco-system down there that doesn't look like anything else in the world.
My bet is he's taking that Digital 3-D camera that he shot GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS on and is going to be lighting and shooting this life in a way that has never been done before, and I bet his big goal is to discover some life nobody has found before, and have them send giant waves all around the world to tell the world to just consider what it is fucking thinking... Oh wait... that's a fictional movie... this is reality... SORRY - I get confused sometimes. Also, I wonder if that Big Wave thing that Cameron came up with in THE ABYSS... I wonder if Lionel Barrymore's prayer in KEY LARGO gave that to him?
So does this mean that Cameron isn't doing another film right at the start on 2004 that's narrative based? No. From what I hear, he's still right on track with BATTLE ANGEL as the lead project. He's probably got the script in whatever computer he's taking with him and is going to spend the non-exploration hours knocking the final kinks out of it. As for Post on this documentary will probably be that same unit that has handled his other documentary work like Ed Marsh working with Sven Pape and John Refoua - the guys that pour through that editorial process for Jim. I wonder if Vince Pace is diving down again and handling cinematography? I wonder if Mike Cameron is inventing anything new for this shoot?
Personally, I love these documentary adventures of Cameron's. They remind me of how much a man is using one dream to finance another. With GHOSTS OF THE ABYSS at around $12 and a half million in domestic Box Office, that's pretty damn sweet. Personally, I can't wait till Jim lands on Mars and shoots it with 3-D!
