The self-proclaimed “King of the World” James Cameron has spent most of the millennium focused on the ever-expanding Avatar franchise. His focus on the world of Pandora has resulted in several projects (Solaris, Alita: Battle Angel, Spider-Man) getting passed on to other filmmakers. Now the Oscar-winning director of Titanic looks to make his first non-Avatar movie in years called Last Train From Hiroshima.

Per Deadline, Cameron and his production company Lightstorm Entertainment have obtained the rights to Charles Pellegrino’s 2015 nonfiction book. Additionally, Cameron purchased Pellegrino’s upcoming follow-up Ghosts of Hiroshima as he intends to combine both books into a single “uncompromising theatrical film.” Hiroshima follows a Japanese survivor of the atomic bomb attack in 1945 who fled the city by train.

Cameron had an obsession with nuclear war paranoia since his youth. He channeled his childhood fear of the Cuban Missile Crisis when he wrote The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The latter sequel featured intense images of a nuclear blast nightmare that Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor had. Cameron revealed that this was a project on his mind after meeting with a real Hiroshima survivor:

“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.” 

Pellegrino’s books detail the two days after the atomic bomb blast in August 1945 using eyewitness accounts from survivors and forensic studies. Cameron and Pellegrino, who served as science consultant on Titanic, have pledged to honor Yamaguchi in their effort to “pass on his unique and harrowing experience to future generations.” The project comes on the heels of Christopher Nolan’s Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer which focused on the creation of the A-bomb.

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Last Train From Hiroshima‘s production start date is unknown at this time. Cameron is in post-production on Avatar: Fire and Ash, set for release in December 2025. Despite past comments about passing future Avatar sequels to another director, Cameron told The Hollywood Reporter in August he still intends to direct the fourth and fifth installments:

Sure. Absolutely. I mean, they’re going to have to stop me. I got plenty of energy, love doing what I’m doing. Why would I not? And they’re written, by the way. I just reread both of them about a month ago. They’re cracking stories. They’ve got to get made. Look, if I get hit by a bus and I’m in an iron lung, somebody else is going to do it.

What do you think about James Cameron directing Last Train From Hirohima? Let us know in the comments.

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