James Cameron Made No Money From “Titanic” (1997)

you know it's kind of weird after doing Terminator 1 and 2 and doing True Lies and all of a sudden you surprise everyone you want to make a film about Titanic yeah it's the old bait-and-switch uh-huh you know this confuses everyone come out and when you went everyone said I want to make a film about Titanic you can imagine they were ecstatic yeah they were just like that's it and you can even see the headlines their Titanic sinks again and all that kind of thing right film sinks of its own weight film is a disaster bah bah you know you can headlines write themselves and it's kind of a drag when like people start going it's a 200 million dollar feel they're almost rooting for it to fail so what they think like originally the budget was gonna be what a hundred million or something yeah we told him a hundred and twenty and that's what we thought it was gonna cost him you weren't Ali weren't lying to him you know yeah that's it no in fact that's why I wound up giving them back my all my money because I said guys I don't want you to think we lied to you just can get you to make this movie right so in other words like they came to you made the deal and you said hey you get a couple of million just for making the movie right and you said to him halfway through the shooting or something hey here's the money back yeah exactly how many years have you devote I'm talking about from conception to the end of this film how many years have you devoted to this well it was three solid years pretty much from the time I finished realized okay and you had the idea you worked on the script I assume yeah you you you wrote the script yourself and then you went ahead and you shot this thing and you've given back all rights to this movie yeah you own nothing of this movie nothing and you will make zero dollars well I own the authorship of the film what is that what does that mean it's you know it depends on how much money means well I mean how do you make money off the film don't you get I don't make money off this film you will not get a percentage of the gross I would have if things had gone the way they were supposed to but you know my philosophy is I take responsibility the buck stops here so for three years not getting paid doesn't disturb you well I'm not gonna be out on the street selling pens no I mean you're wealthy man from Terminator and stuff but I'm comfortable I wouldn't say wealthy because really I have this habit of making movies for companies that then probably go bankrupt and don't pay you people put you probably out of your mind to put on Schwarzenegger in it though right right he was like an oiled up loincloth guy everybody was handing the guy swords right what I'm in right and nobody I mean here I had a role where he played it with his clothes on the whole the whole picture you made his career I would say don't you think I mean you took him to another level I think it was a stepping stone for him that that would have taken him more steps if he hadn't done that filming he would have gotten there I mean you know Arnold so you know what he's like was there anybody else who could have played that role did you think of somebody else for that role I don't think in retrospect anybody else would have had did you write it for him now when did you determine Ange a word of it when I cast him when did you determine that Arnold Schwarzenegger should be the Terminator Oh Minnie bought lunch I took him to lunch and he bought but you knew but you knew but you knew that he should be the guy no it was one of those things where Arnold is going on about the script and I really like this scene ever how did he see the script did you send it - I sent it to him you send it to him right and actually his agent sent it to him to play the other guy the guy that Michael Biehn played oh really which is like 30 pages of dialogue and and and at that point you know Arnold wasn't ready for that character and he said that he just has to put it on little cards and put it up like on the window yeah right here's trouble memorizing yeah well you know the scene in Terminator 2 where he's going on about how the Russians launch and all that stuff yeah you're Skynet come becomes aware a lot of that was 29 1997 all that stuff he had it all pasted up on the windshield of the car all stealth bombers are upgraded with Cyberdyne computers becoming fully unmanned how do you get to be the director how do you do where'd you grow up I went straight from being a truck driver to being a film director president true what happened yeah no kidding all you got to do is stand there and say I'm the director did you go to film scores no nothing no but what I used to do is I'd I was working as a truck driver on the weekends I'd Drive down to USC L in Los Angeles right I lived in Orange County at the time a truck driver yeah I was truck driver I'd Drive down to USC I'd go in and for the cost of the xeroxing I would Xerox all these like doctoral dissertations on optical printing and film stock film emotions and all that stuff build up these big binders of like how everything was I was like a total gearhead so I gave myself like a full college education for about $120 Wow you're saying your whole while you were truck driver yeah you were just fascinated with sort of how they did special effects and that kind of stuff but it was a hobby for you yeah it was a hobby you never dreamt of being a filmmaker oh no I was starting to get serious about it I've 10 busted a movie I cousin how old were you at this point we would be driving 24 25 really I was married lived in a little house you're a regular guy I was a regular regular guy so you're telling me you're driving a truck how do you make the transition to be the director of how do you get on a set and was your first movie Terminator 1 I got I got hired to do his film Khurana - and they fired me after ten days and what did you get hired to do directed directed yeah piranha - Rana - yes that's absolutely the best flying piranha film ever made was it a jars ripoff yeah absolutely

Channel: The Howard Stern Show

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Keywords: The Howard Stern Show, Howard Stern, Robin Quivers, Fred Norris, Gary Dell'Abate, Baba Booey, SiriusXM, HSS, htvod, Titanic, Terminator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Cameron

Id: VUKu_zODapQ

Length: 4min 46sec (286 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 08 2019