Tsutomu Yamaguchi is perhaps the man with the least and most luck of all time. In 1945 he experienced the American atomic bombing of Hiroshima – and survived it. He then took the train to Nagasaki, where a second atomic bomb was detonated. Yamaguchi survived this one too, and only died in 2010. James Cameron is now making his next film about him.
That is, as soon as his busy Avatar schedule allows it. It would be Cameron’s first non-Avatar film since Titanic… and his next period film.
Last Train From Hiroshima: James Cameron’s next film project
According to Deadline, James Cameron acquired the rights to two non-fiction books on the subject: Ghosts of Hiroshima and Last Train From Hiroshima, both by Charles Pellegrino. Eyewitness accounts and the latest scientific findings are to provide the basis for a historical biopic, which the renowned director is planning to direct as “uncompromising feature film” Perhaps even as a counterpart to Christopher Nolan’s historical drama Oppenheimer, which completely ignored the Japanese victim perspective.
Cameron also spoke to Deadline about his meeting with Yamaguchi, whom he visited in 2010 together with author Pellegrino:
It is a subject I wanted to make a film about, but struggled with how to go about it. I met Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a Survivors of both Hiroshima and Nagasakijust a few days before he passed away. He was in the hospital. He passed the baton of his personal story to us, so I have to do it. I can’t turn away from it.
Cameron has been interested in nuclear wars since long before his encounter with Yamaguchi. In his Terminator films he had already dealt with the fear of nuclear annihilation, which he describes as “judgment day” in his sci-fi horror film.