Hollywood may be glamorous, but getting a start there often isn’t. Even James Cameron, director of blockbusters including The Terminator and Avatar, started out on the bottom floor. In a new book, Cameron says that he was able to get his big break by standing out from the pack while modeling a spaceship for B-movie legend Roger Corman: “I thought, okay, it’s Roger Corman. He does girls-in-bamboo-cages movies. What is he selling? He sells tits! So I designed a kind of Amazon warrior spaceship — basically a spaceship with tits.” The design impressed Corman, and he was soon put in charge of more than just modeling.
James Cameron used sex and sci-fi to get noticed in Hollywood
is The Verge’s executive editor. He has covered tech, policy, and online creators for over a decade.
Cameron elaborates upon how his interaction with Corman set him up to direct his first feature film, Piranha II: The Spawning, in an extensive excerpt of the book Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses: Roger Corman, King of the B Movie, published in Grantland. Corman eventually allowed him to direct several movie scenes when a shoot fell far behind, allowing Cameron to impress two producers through a practical effect that he set up to make worms writhe around on cue. Cameron says, “What I hear back later is they go off and talk and say, ‘If he’s that good with worms, I wonder what he can do with actors!’”
Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.
