Hollywood, as the center of the global music and film industry today, has produced many excellent and even legendary directors in the past half century.
However, for the audience of the new century, when it comes to directors related to words such as "legend" and "miracle", I am afraid that most of them will first think of James Cameron, who is known as "Card God".
James cameron
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > the achievement of "God."</h1>
As many people know, Cameron is most talked about relying on "Titanic" to break the world box office record in 1997, and then this record has been unbroken for 12 years, so he broke his record again in 2009 with "Avatar".
Titanic
But in fact, breaking the world record twice and surpassing himself is not only Cameron in Hollywood, but also another legendary director, Steven Spielberg.
Spielberg
The real success of Titanic and Avatar is not only in breaking box office records, but in their vastly new record lists.
Jurassic Park (a film directed by Spielberg) grossed just $912 million before 1997, while Titanic grossed $1.85 billion worldwide, more than double that of Jurassic.
Jurassic Park box office record
Titanic box office record
In 2009, Avatar grossed $2.74 billion worldwide, a quarter more than the $1.85 billion it had at the time.
Scary? People break records and break two or three hundred million or even millions and tens of millions, and Cameron either does not break, or to break it, he will double kill or close to the gap of 1 billion.
"Avatar" box office record
With such an achievement, it is no wonder that so many people call it "Card God".
However, as in many literary and artistic works, God was actually only a person before he became a god, and he also suffered as a "human".
And the same was true of cameron's early years as a director.
< h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > bad? No, it's the loneliness</h1>
Cameron himself did not come from a film major, but when he was a student, he was very interested in the industrial technology of film, so he has always studied the technology of film shooting and special effects production at that time.
Young Cameron is also a beard
In 1978, cameron at the time, borrowing money from a group of dentist friends, made his first short film, Xenogenesis.
Although the short film was only 12 minutes long, it began to attract the attention of some filmmaking companies, and soon after, he was invited by Roger Coleman, who was known for making B-movies, to take on a position as a model maker at his New World Pictures company.
Fragments of Xenogenesis
Speaking of Roger, although most of the films are B-grade films, during Cameron's tenure, he also taught him a lot of knowledge about film shooting, and Cameron himself has a high talent and interest in this aspect, so he has always hoped to have the opportunity to direct a film himself.
Soon, the makers of a low-budget horror film, Piranha 2: Breeding, invited him to direct the film, and the young Cameron thought his chance had finally arrived, so he went to Italy.
What he didn't expect, however, was that this was the beginning of the nightmare.
Piranha 2 poster...
In fact, low-budget horror movies were still quite popular in the 80s, when Hollywood screens included Jason from the Friday 13 series and Michael Miles from the Moonlight Panic series.
In other words, the producers at the time wanted to take this ride and make money by making a bloody horror movie.
Moonlight Panic killer Michael Miles
As a newcomer director without any experience, Cameron has almost 0 voice in this film, and the director and producer Odogi G. Assonitis have the power to monopolize, whether it is the script or editing of the film, which is almost single-handedly handled by him, so Cameron has had many conflicts with the producers.
However, in italy, your small director from Canada who has no experience and fame wants to rebel, is it useful? Soon Cameron was fired.
The extranet has reported on this matter
In fact, Ovidio G. Assonitis also had his own calculations to find Cameron to be a director, he himself wanted to direct himself, but because of the contract, he could only find some newcomers from the United States and Canada as directors, but how could he let these newcomers shoot their own films?
So, it started out as an innings.
Ovid G. Assonitis
Cameron even sneaked on set to edit the film after being fired, but was quickly cut back by Odogio G. Assonitis.
In the end, the director's column "Piranha 2" with Cameron's name on it was released, and the result was needless to say, a pure bad film.
This is also why after becoming famous, Cameron is still very resistant to admitting that this film is his debut work, not that some people are not willing to face failure.
"Piranha 2" is a big bad movie
More importantly, at that time, Cameron, as a newcomer, what he urgently needed was to write a work to give his resume a column of experience, not to seek a big explosion but at least to be stable, but outsiders did not know the inside story of the shooting of "Piranha 2", they would only think that this bad film was made by James Cameron in the director column.
A non-director professional, the first film after directing is a bad film, and the young director, will there be a company to invite him to make a film?
This is a fatal blow to a newcomer director
It is also because of this incident that Cameron understands that to make a movie, he must have the greatest power, he must control everything, so in the future, he is very persistent about the control of the film, and his rigorous attitude is also called "tyrant on the set" by the actors, which can be said to be thanks to this "Piranha 2".
<h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" > blessed</h1>
Because of the "Piranha 2" incident suffered a great blow to Kame solemnly ill, and in the nightmare, he saw a robot attacking him, this robot gave him great inspiration, and when he woke up, he sorted out his thoughts, and the next project began to appear in his mind.
Yes, this is the Terminator series that will become popular around the world.
Terminator
Soon, Cameron finished the script for Terminator, and because the project was very innovative and the script was excellent, many studios expressed great interest.
However, the biggest problem in front of Cameron is not that the script is not the company wants, but that even if people want you for this project, they will not plan to ask you to direct this movie, after all, your director resume only has a terrible "Piranha 2".
At that time, there were almost no companies that wanted to find Cameron as a director
To this end, Cameron thought about it and finally had to sell the terminator script for $1, but the additional requirement was that he had to direct it himself.
Finally, Gale Anne Hurd, the founder of Orion Pictures at the time, Cameron's future second wife, bought the project.
The real debut of James Cameron's directing career was announced.
Gale Anne Hurd, Cameron's second wife
At first, it was proposed that Lance Henrykson play the Terminator, but Cameron vetoed it outright, saying that Schwarzenegger was the actor who best fit the Terminator in his mind.
As a director, what you must have is to see people's vision, and it turns out that Cameron's talent as a director is really extraordinary, and Schwarzenegger's terminator is still an extremely classic image on the big screen even in the 21st century today.
The Governor plays the Terminator
In the end, "Terminator" swept the worldwide box office with a production cost of $6.4 million to $6.5 million, far exceeding the expectations of the producer Orion Pictures.
Not only did the film win the Saturn Award for Best Picture at the time, but in 2008 it was even listed in the National Film Registry, which has been called "a cultural symbol" in film history.
Terminator 1
Cameron also made a name for himself for the film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > accurate positioning and forward thinking</h1>
With the success of "Terminator", Cameron also began to receive many project invitations, such as the sequel to the famous movie "Alien", so he began to shoot another classic of his own, "Alien 2".
The biggest difference between Cameron and other directors is that he always looks farther than others.
Or rather, his thinking is very advanced.
People ahead of their time
The previous "Terminator" is a future artificial intelligence robot, and this time "Alien 2" he is the first to choose a male character as a supporting role, and the heroine Ripley to be the real protagonist.
You should know that in Hollywood in the 80s, the status of women in most movies was very low, such as the famous "007" series, where the bang girls were basically all vases.
At that time, the "007" series, which was popular all over the world, the heroines were vases
When white male heroes flooded the screen, Cameron wanted to break with tradition and let the low-status women at that time also become the protagonists of salvation.
Looking at the so-called Hollywood feminist movement that has only emerged for a few years, it can only be said that Cameron's thinking at that time was already ahead of its time.
Ripley, the big heroine of Alien 2
At the same time, the first "Alien" was a horror film, perhaps because of the shadow of "Piranha 2", or perhaps Cameron knew that if he made "Alien 2" into a horror film, it would be difficult to surpass the previous work, so he changed the genre of this sequel to the science fiction film he was best at.
Horror movies become science fiction movies
Cameron's approach turned out to be quite sensible.
"Alien 2", as a sequel to a horror film, not only went out of a completely different path from the previous work, but also because of the setting of "Alien Queen", the worldview of the entire series was greatly expanded, laying the groundwork for future sequels, and its excellent visual effects also won the 59th Academy Award for Best Visual Effects at that time.
Alien Queen
As a film with a woman as the absolute protagonist, it was obviously quite good to make $130 million in that era.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > at the forefront of the times</h1>
In fact, Cameron can be said to be a man born to be a director.
Most of his film knowledge is self-taught, but he fully has all the conditions for a good director, such as accurate viewing of people, imaginative ideas, accurate positioning of the film and so on.
Cameron had a lot of fun talking and laughing with the governor
Excluding the titular "Piranha 2", the first film he really directed personally, "Terminator", was quite eye-catching in both quality and performance, and the subsequent "Alien 2" also continued his glory.
What is genius? This is called genius, as long as he is given the real environment, he can start to play like an open hanging.
"Terminator" filming tidbits
In fact, only from the two movies of "Terminator" and "Alien 2", we can also see a great feature of Cameron's director.
He is always obsessed with the pursuit of the future and breaks the tradition.
It is precisely because he has always had this kind of thinking that he can create so many epoch-making works in the future.
"Alien 2" shooting tidbits
Of course, while "Terminator" and "Alien 2" are both extremely good films, these two movies are strictly speaking, only appetizers before Cameron "became a god".
After making a name for himself, Cameron also began his journey to break through.