James Cameron Confirms Next Film Will Be Shot in 3D

James Cameron is currently focused on his upcoming Avatar projects, but he’s already thinking about his next big film. This new movie will be based on Ghosts of Hiroshima, a powerful story about one man’s survival during the atomic bombings in World War II.

The film is inspired by the book Ghosts of Hiroshima, written by Charles Pellegrino. It tells the true story of Tsutomu Yamaguchi, who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. His experience is one of the most remarkable and tragic tales in history.

The audiobook version of Pellegrino’s book just released its first teaser trailers, narrated by Martin Sheen, a three-time Emmy winner, with original music composed by Hans Zimmer. The book is set to be released on August 5, which marks the 80th anniversary of the bombings.

James Cameron recently spoke about the movie while it is still in the early stages of development. He admitted that this film might be his toughest challenge yet. He shared, “This might be the most challenging film I ever make. I don’t 100% have my strategy fully in place [right now] for how I want to see it, for how I want to shield people from the horror, but still be honest. Also, for how I can find some kind of poetry, beauty, or spiritual epiphany in it somehow, which I know must be there. It’s there in every human story. So, it’s going to be very challenging. I might not even be up to the task, but that never stopped me before.”

While details about how graphic the movie will be remain unclear, Cameron revealed that much of the story will come from the point of view of ground zero in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This approach offers an intense and close-up perspective that many other films, like Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer (2023), have mostly avoided. Cameron has already pushed limits in showing nuclear devastation before, such as the dream sequence in Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). It will be interesting to see how far he goes this time.

Cameron also confirmed that the movie will be filmed in 3D. He said, “I want to show you what it was like. You’re just there. You’re a witness to history, you’re a witness to what really happened, and we can do that. I’m going to shoot it in 3D, if need be. I’m going to make it as real for you as I can. You know, I don’t know where it’s going to take me. I am actually afraid of this movie in a way. You live within a movie for a period of time. Avatar is great. I get to live on this fantasy planet with all these amazing creatures and so on. However, there are times when you feel compelled to say something else as an artist.”

This project is very personal to Cameron. He met Tsutomu Yamaguchi shortly before the man passed away and felt a strong duty to tell his story. Cameron explained, “It’s a subject that I’ve wanted to do a film about, that I’ve been wrestling with how to do it, over the years. I met Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just days before he died. He was in the hospital. He was handing the baton of his personal story to us, so I have to do it. I can’t turn away from it.”

Cameron and Pellegrino hope this film will pass on Yamaguchi’s unique and heartbreaking experience to future generations.

The book will be published by Blackstone Publishing and The Story Factory and is already available for pre-order. However, there’s no confirmed production or release date for the movie yet, since Cameron is still busy with his Avatar work.

Cameron aims to tell the story honestly and without holding back, comparing his goal to what Steven Spielberg did with Saving Private Ryan and Schindler’s List. Fans will have to wait a bit longer to see how Cameron brings this emotional and intense story to the big screen.

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