If that narrative sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the story of every Cameron film since 1991. Cameron’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” was the most expensive movie of his career at that point in time, and the most expensive ever made, with a budget of over $100 million, and ended up making $581 million in theaters alone. Cameron’s next one, “Titanic,” was so big ($200 million) that it had to be financed by two studios, Fox and Paramount. Some believed this would not only be the end of Cameron but would take down both studios. The movie grossed 11 times its production budget in theaters and swept the Oscars.
Landau’s collaborations with Cameron didn’t just hit big at the time of their initial release, they’ve proven to have legs. “Titanic” made another $22 million during its 25th anniversary re-release, while the 2022 reissue of “Avatar” in advance of the sequel made $76 million worldwide, a re-release record.
Cameron offhandedly described Landau as “the studio suit” assigned by Fox to oversee “True Lies,” but grew to like and trust him, and began thinking of him as more of a collaborator than a liaison to money people. Paula Parisi’s book Titanic and the Making of James Cameron describes Landau as “the most important hire” that Cameron made in advance of starting that production. Landau was at Fox from 1990-95, a period that included the release of Kathryn Bigelow’s “Strange Days,” which Cameron executive produced and cowrote. According to the making-of book, Landau “… had offhandedly mentioned to Cameron at the ‘Strange Days’ premiere that he planned to go back into producing. Fox had already agreed to give him an independent deal. As casual as he made it all sound, those who knew him were convinced he cooked up this exit strategy in the express home of working on ‘Titanic.'”
Cameron brought up the idea of hiring Landau to Rae Sanchini, president of Cameron’s production company Lightstorm; she agreed, and Landau not only came on board but became Cameron’s “chief co-strategist.” Landau was just 35 at the time.
Cameron told Parisi that he and Landau gamed out “the broad strokes” of “Titanic” together, in every area except for visual effects, which were overseen by Cameron’s FX company Digital Domain, cofounded with master creature designer Stan Winston. “Jon and I figured out how to do everything on the movie,” Cameron said. “The broad strokes. How are we going to do this? What are we going to build? Are we going to build this side or that side? Are we going to build this length? Are we going to build the forward well deck? Is it going to be attached or is it going to be a separate set? If Jon didn’t think of it, I thought of it, and we bounded stuff off each other until we eventually homed in on the answer.”