THE GREATEST SHOW MAN
LIKE JACK DAWSON handcuffed in a cabin in Titanic, Sarah Connor in Pescadero State Hospital in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, or Ellen Ripley in that water-lashed chamber of facehuggers in Aliens, James Cameron is currently in lockdown. His plans to do a further stint of filming for the Avatar sequels have been temporarily thwarted, and for now he remains at home in California. “We were about to shoot down in New Zealand, so that got pushed,” he tells Empire on the phone from Malibu. “We’re trying to get back to it as quick as we can.”
However, like all three of those tenacious Cameron heroes, his iron resolve remains intact. He’s staying busy, staying positive, doing what he can. He still has the ability to do “a bit of editing” on his Pandoran adventures. He has several business ventures he’s focusing on, including a pea-protein extraction factory in Canada, while he’s working on getting personal protective equipment into America to help the fight against coronavirus.
And, of course, at this deeply weird time he is turning, like the rest of us, to cinema for comfort. “I’m trying to organise these family movie nights — I’ve got my kids at home and their taste is so different than mine,” he with John Wayne?’” They said, ‘Who?’ I said, ‘Alright, we’re watching .’ They absolutely loved it. My teenage girls are very horse-orientated, and now they know who John Wayne is.” Not that every James Cameron movie party features a classic. “One of my guilty-pleasure films that I actually think is quite beautifully made is . Watching Michelle Rodriguez in that film, moving like this feral creature, is joyful.”
