Is James Cameron thinking of making a film about the bombing of Hiroshima? It appears so. A couple of days ago the only known survivor of both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs, Tsutomu Yamaguchi, died aged 93. At the time there were rumours floating around that Cameron had visited Yamaguchi in hospital about a month ago, as research for a film he’s thinking about making.
Now comes confirmation that not only did this meeting happen, but also that Cameron is indeed thinking about making a movie about the bombing. Variety reports that the Titanic and Avatar director has optioned the upcoming nonfiction book, ‘The Last Train From Hiroshima: The Survivors Look Back’, by Charles Pellegrino.
Cameron has paid for the rights himself, with an eye to directing a film about the terrible events. The book is said to take place over two days and weaves together eyewitness accounts from both Japanese civilians and American pilots to build up a picture of what really happened in when the bombs dropped and what it was like to experience it firsthand.
At the moment the whole thing is in the very early stages, as Cameron hasn’t actually set the film up at either Fox or his own production company, Lightstorm. With Avatar currently breaking box office records, it’d be silly to bet against the director, but Hiroshima is a very difficult subject to make a Hollywood movie about (which is probably why no one has tried), and it’s unliket it would help the anti-American bias people have assigned Cameron post-Avatar.
It’ll be interesting to see if this is something he moves forward with, although with the director already lining up numerous other projects, including Battlefield Alita and possible Avatar sequels, it’s unlikely he’d make the Hiroshima movie for a few years yet anyway.