James Cameron will take a break from Avatar to create a film based on Charles Pellegrino’s books Ghosts of Hiroshima and Last Train From Hiroshima… eventually.
Details on Cameron’s vacation away from Pandora come from Deadline, which says the filmmaker has purchased the rights to the yet-to-release Ghosts of Hiroshima book and pledged to create a film based on it as well as Pellegrino’s 2010 novel Last Train From Hiroshima. The movie will carry the same name as the latter novel, too. The catch is that Cameron will only be able to work on the project as long as Avatar production permits.
Avatar first took viewers to its sci-fi setting with the release of the original film in 2009. Its sequel, Avatar: The Way of Water, didn’t hit theaters until a whopping 13 years later in December 2022. Although the next film in the series, Fire and Ash, has plotted a December 19, 2025, release date, Cameron says he’s still hoping to direct Avatar 4 and 5. It’s a plan that will see the Terminator creator pushing forward in the world of Avatar for many years to come, so there’s no telling when work on Last Train From Hiroshima will truly begin.
Still, news that Cameron is dipping his toes into something outside of Avatar may be exciting for his longtime fans. The last time he directed a non-Avatar project was the groundbreaking, Oscar-winning film, Titanic, which was released all the way back in 1997. Cameron is already setting high expectations for the Last Train From Hiroshima movie, too, describing his adaptation of both books as an “uncompromising theatrical film.”
Ghosts of Hiroshima is primed to release in August of next year. The film, meanwhile, promises to tell a story that focuses on the true story of a man who survived both bombs that dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War 2. Pellegrino’s novels are said to pull from the accounts of other survivors and explore how the bombs affected those who were there to witness their impact.
“It’s a subject that I’ve wanted to do a film about, that I’ve been wrestling with how to do it, over the years,” Cameron added. “I met Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a survivor of both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just days before he died. He was in the hospital. He was handing the baton of his personal story to us, so I have to do it. I can’t turn away from it.”
This isn't Cameron's first attempt at getting a Last Train From Hiroshima movie off the ground. The movie-making legend had previously promised to create a film based on the book in 2010. However, those ambitions were brought to a halt when Pellegrino and his book were involved in controversy that saw readers questioning the material. At the time, the author was pressed about whether some of the individuals named in the non-fiction work were actually real, bringing the movie's production to an end.
Pellegrino worked with Cameron as a science consultant on both Titanic and Avatar. Further details on Last Train From Hiroshima, including more specific plot information and its cast, have yet to be revealed. For more on Cameron’s future in film, you can read up on his plans for Avatar 6 and 7 even if he isn’t directing them.
Michael Cripe is a freelance contributor with IGN. He started writing in the industry in 2017 and is best known for his work at outlets such as The Pitch, The Escapist, OnlySP, and Gameranx.
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