Los Angeles is rightly called the ‘City of Dreams’ by many. Every year, thousands arrive in the city in search of their shot at stardom. And while many continue to toil, the ones that make it have some of Hollywood‘s most inspiring rags-to-riches stories. Arguably, the greatest of them belongs to the man who toiled as a truck driver and janitor in his 20s, only to become one of the most successful and richest storytellers of our times.
The janitor who became a filmmaker
Born in 1954 in Canada, James Cameron moved to California when he was 17. Although he enrolled in college to study physics, he changed his major to English and eventually dropped out. In his 20s, Cameron worked odd jobs, driving trucks and also as a high school janitor. During this time, he learned about the science behind movie visual effects. After watching Star Wars in 1977, he decided to become a filmmaker and quit his job as a truck driver.
Cameron made a short film in 1978 after borrowing some money and then honed his craft working as a miniature model maker at Roger Corman Studios. He worked as art director for the science-fiction film Battle Beyond the Stars (1980), and was in the crew of Escape from New York (1981), and Galaxy of Terror (1981). He was serving as the special effects supervisor for Piranha II: The Spawning in 1982 when the original director, Miller Drake, left the project due to creative differences with the producer. Cameron was appointed director, and he made his directorial debut. The film, however, was a massive box office bomb.
When James Cameron sold his script for $1
The same year, after getting inspiration from Halloween and a fever dream about an invincible robot man, Cameron wrote his first feature film script. The filmmaker approached several studios, but nobody wanted to bet on a new director. Gale Anne Hurd, a colleague and founder of Pacific Western Productions, agreed to buy Cameron’s script for one dollar on the condition that Cameron direct the film. Hemdale Pictures, a minor studio, came on board, and Cameron was given a small budget of just over $6 million. The film was The Terminator. It went on to gross $78 million upon release in 1984, catapulting both Cameron and lead star Arnold Schwarzenegger to superstardom.
James Cameron’s $8 billion haul at the box office
After the success of The Terminator, Cameron never looked back. In 1986, he directed Aliens, a bigger box office hit that crossed $100 million, his first film to hit the mark. With Terminator 2: The Judgement Day, he breached the $500 million mark in 1991. He delivered hits on either side of the blockbuster in The Abyss and True Lies. But it was with the 1997 all-time blockbuster Titanic that Cameron became a household name internationally. The film grossed over $2 billion and became the highest-grossing film ever. The record was broken by Cameron’s Avatar in 2009. So far, Cameron has directed 9 films that have collectively grossed over $8 billion at the global box office. He has three more huge films lined up – Avatar 3, 4, and 5 – meaning he could take the haul over $10 billion if all goes well.