James Cameron Announces New Film About the Atomic Bomb, Between Two Avatars

His very first original feature film outside Pandora since Titanic!

It's been a quarter of a century since James Cameron spends all his time on Pandora. Movies Avataras profitable as they were (5 billion in two parts), consumed all the energy of the brilliant American filmmaker. His last feature film – outside Avatar – thus goes back to Titanicin 1997!

So of course, it’s an event: James Cameron will leave the world of the Na'vi to direct a new feature film, with his feet on the ground. He has just acquired the rights to Charles Pellegrino's next book, Ghosts of Hiroshimawhich will be released in August 2025. According to Deadline, the director has committed to using this book, as well as the previous book, The Last Train from Hiroshima (published in 2015), as the basis for a new film, which he will shoot as soon as production begins.Avatar will allow it. We hope after having completed Avatar 3 and before finishing Avatar 4…

No precise date yet, but already a title: Last Train From Hiroshima will bring together the two books in “a single uncompromising cinema film” promises James Cameron.

What a story for Last Train From Hiroshima ?

The obsession with nuclear war, present in several of his iconic films, including Terminator And Terminator 2: Judgment Daynotoriously lives James Cameronsince he witnessed the Cuban Missile Crisis as a child. He will be confronted with the very real tragedy, this time, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The film will tell the true story of a Japanese man who survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima during World War II, taking a train to Nagasaki at the last second… and then surviving the nuclear blast in the other city. Both of Pellegrino's books draw on testimonies from bomb survivors and the new science of forensic archaeology. Pellegrino details the event and the aftermath of those two historic days in August 1945, when nuclear devices were detonated over Japan and changed life on Earth forever. At the heart of the story are Japanese civilians on the ground and American airmen in the air. The bombs are estimated to have killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people.

James Cameron tells Deadline:

“It's a subject I've always wanted to make a film about. I've wondered how to deal with it well over the years.”

He then reveals having met Tsutomu Yamaguchithis survivor of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a few days before his death.He was in the hospital. He was passing on the witness of his personal story to us, so I feel a duty to do so. I cannot turn away from it. I am committed to passing on his unique and poignant experience to future generations..”

Last Train From Hiroshima does not yet have a cast, or a filming date. But it should be noted that next year will mark the 80th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.