Although the big news about James Cameron are his sequels ‘Avatar 2’, Avatar 3’ and the soon to be released version of ‘Titanic’ in 3D, Cameron did make some time to comment on his film ‘Fantastic Voyage’ which is still in the development phase.
According to Deadline, Cameron was at press junket at Paramount yesterday showing off some scenes from his newly converted 3D version of ‘Titanic’ when he was asked about the progress of another film in the works: the reboot of the 1966 film ‘Fantastic Voyage.’
You may remember the original ‘Fantastic Voyage’ movie with Rachel Welch and Stephen Boyd. Several scientists went aboard a submarine called the Proteus and were shrunk so that they could be injected into a colleague in order to remove a blot clot in his brain caused by an assassination attempt.
Cameron’s version will be similar to the original, but will have the added twist of being a love story. The story will deal with a doctor who is going through some troubled times in his marriage. In order to save his gravely ill wife, he is injected into her body. Once he gets to her brain, “things really heat up.”
This remake has been in development for some time now passing hands in terms of directors and writers. Originally, the script was written by Shane Salerno (‘Armageddon’, ‘AVPR: Alien vs. Predator: Requiem’) but last year Laeta Kalogridis (executive producer and writer of ‘Shutter Island’) was called in for a rewrite. According to Cameron, before the project can get to the production level, the complex story needs to be just right and at the moment, it’s only about two-thirds of the way done. Although Shane Levy (‘Reel Steel’) is still very attached to the project and is locked to direct it, it doesn’t look like ‘Fantastic Voyage’ will be his next project since the re-writes on the script are not yet done. And while there are no stars attached to this project, Hugh Jackman’s name has been floating around to take the lead.
The premise of adding the element of a love story to the original concept of ‘Fantastic Voyage’ seems to be a good move on Cameron’s part. After all, it’s one of the main reasons that ‘Titanic’ was so popular. Instead of the usual disaster movie of a big ship going down and the passengers all running around and screaming, the interwoven story of Jack and Rose’s romance was one of the reasons audiences went to see it. We’ll just have to wait and see if this same formula will also work with ‘Fantastic Voyage.’
What do you think of Cameron’s decision? Would you see ‘Fantanstic Voyage’ the love story and who would you like to see in the lead role?
