James Cameron dreams his films

15 August 2017

James Cameron dreams his films.

James Cameron

The Oscar-winning filmmaker has helmed some of the most successful movies of all time, including 'Titanic' and 'The Terminator', and says he gets inspiration and ideas during his sleep.

Speaking to the Metro newspaper, he said: "'The Terminator' came from a dream of a kind of death figure, a chrome skeleton emerging from a fire.

"A lot of the root imagery I had in 'Avatar' came from dreams I had when I was still in college of a bioluminescent forest.

"Sometimes I'll wake up from a nightmare and think, gosh, that was good, I can make a movie about that."

The 62-year-old director says the story for 1989 thriller 'The Abyss' came after he had a nightmare dying during a tsunami.

He explained: "I used to have recurring dreams about being killed by a tsunami. Then I made 'The Abyss' and, even though the wave sequence didn't make the release cut, there was a giant tsunami at the end of the film and I never had those dreams again."

Cameron is currently working on the hotly-anticipated four follow-ups to the 2009 fantasy film 'Avatar' and despite being repeatedly delayed, he claims he has been working for nearly three years non-stop on it.

He said: "I start working with the cast in September but I haven't had a day off for several months and I've been working at it pretty much full-time for three years.

"So that's design, writing four scripts that are worthy of the kind of budgets/audience expectations that would make it worthwhile, designing an entire world, completely revamping our virtual production pipeline and building the actual facilities."

The original 'Avatar' movie - which starred Sam Worthington, Zoe Saldana and Sigourney Weaver - grossed $2.7 billion at the global box office, and received widespread praise from movie critics.

The next instalments are slated to be released on December 18, 2020, December 17, 2021, December 20, 2024 and December 19, 2025.