James Cameron Called James Bond A Complete Scumbag
James Cameron might be one of the most innovative filmmakers in the world, but he does not kindly to James Bond's charater, even calling him a "scumbag."
The James Bond franchise has made viewers into fans for more than 60 years, starting with Dr. No in 1962. Based on the novels by Ian Fleming, everyone’s favorite 007 has toured the world, loved lots of women, and sipped shaken martinis while fighting bad guys along the way. The British Secret Service agent has been embodied by six actors throughout 25 official films, famously beginning with Sean Connery. Many would think that James Bond doesn’t have any real-life critics, but apparently, director James Cameron is not that much of a fan of Bond’s antics and the franchise.
According to a report by Geek Tyrant, Titanic director James Cameron firmly believes that the character of James Bond is a “scumbag” and not worthy of screen time. Based on Bond’s relationships with alcohol and with women, Cameron doesn’t exactly care for the action films of the franchise as much as international audiences have. Not embracing the character, Cameron has been known to dislike Bond for his womanizing ways, particularly because he feels that Bond is a fantasy type of character for male viewers of the franchise.
Many of the comments that James Cameron has made about James Bond stem from some of the behind-the-scenes work he did in writing and directing True Lies, which premiered in 1994. In a sprawling interview with Movieline back in 1998 about the making of True Lies, the director spoke at length about how James Bond inspired the creation of True Lies. Specifically, the Arnold Schwarzenegger character was taken from aspects of Bond’s character but centered the storyline around how funny it would be to make a Bond-type go home to his wife and kids at the end of a long day of spying. Cameron found hilarity in the fact that Bond in general is a “male fantasy” where he can sleep with a different woman every night, and how immoral something like that would be.
The totality of True Lies is based on the French film La Totale!, upon which Arnold Schwarzenegger asked his Terminator director James Cameron to watch. Certain portions of that film and the James Bond films were inserted into what eventually became True Lies, per an interview Cameron gave with Yahoo Entertainment. As much of a bozo as Cameron believed Bond to be, he relished crafting a main male character that personified the realistic versions of what being a spy could be about.
True Lies went on to gross over $375 million at the box office, cementing the legacies of Arnold Schwarzenegger, actress Jamie Lee Curtis, and James Cameron. Cameron went on to write and direct Titanic, which became the most successful film ever made until the director broke his own records with 2009’s Avatar. Avatar has spawned several sequels, the first of which is called Avatar: The Way of Water, which is set to debut on December 16, 2022. Avatar: The Way of Water will star Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana, and Stephen Lang, as well as Cameron’s frequent collaborators Kate Winslet and Sigourney Weaver.
