James Cameron can sit a little easier in his submersible following the performance of Avatar: The Way of Water. The sequel’s $2.3 billion and counting has soared past the break-even estimates that guaranteed the future of the franchise, meaning the record-breaking director can start planning projects away from Pandora, starting with an adaptation of The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back.
According to a report in The LA Times, Cameron hopes to take a break before shooting Avatar 4, having filmed The Way of Water and Avatar 3 back-to-back, and also use some of that time to start work on what the story calls a pet-project.
The untitled film will be based on The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back by author Charles R. Pellegrino, which includes an interview with the late Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the only known survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs. It documents life in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the time immediately preceding, during and following the aftermath of the atomic bombings of Japan.
Cameron stated that the movie will once again be intended as a big-screen experience, having previously reiterated his dislike for the home-viewing experience – “Enough of the streaming already” – and that he draws parallels between the modern world and the one in which the Hiroshima bomb was dropped, saying “We live in a more precarious world than we thought we did. I think the Hiroshima film would be as timely as ever, if not more so. It reminds people what these weapons really do when they’re used against human targets.”
We all know that Cameron can handle large scale epics based on historical tragedies, so let us know whether you’re looking forward to seeing the director tackle something non-Avatar related for the first time in 25 years by heading to our social channels @FlickeringMyth…
