James Cameron ‘Knew Nothing About Guns’ When Making ‘The Terminator,’ but Then He Remembered: ‘This Is America, I Can Just Go Buy Them!’

variety.com:

Ben Croll James Cameron delivered a masterclass in Paris on Thursday night following a sold-out screening of his 1984 breakout “The Terminator.” With the title so fresh in his mind, the filmmaker spent much of the session sharing stories from the project’s improbable making of.

For one thing, what the production lacked in financial resources it made up for in pre-production time — eight months, to be exact, as the team waited for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s schedule to clear. “I figured we didn’t have the money for a designer, and I could draw, so what the hell,” Cameron recalled. “I drew everything, and storyboarded the film very, very meticulously.” The masterclass kicked off a new exhibition at Paris’ Cinematheque Française that positions Cameron as a graphic artist who draws inspiration from his own subconscious.

Running until January 2025, “The Art of James Cameron” showcases more then 300 paintings, etchings and production designs pulled from Cameron’s private collection, signed by the filmmaker’s own hand and exhibited as a kind of career retrospective (see some images below). “The Terminator’s” script was lean and mean and full of weapons, a fact that soon proved an issue for a Canadian director exploring unfamiliar ground. “I knew nothing about guns,” Cameron said. “And then I thought, ‘This is America, I can just go buy them!’” Now armed with a camera, a roommate (in fact, co-screenwriter William Wisher Jr.) and a newfound arsenal, Cameron went out rolling and shooting, working out each and every action beat and shot choice before production ever started.