Directors James Cameron (Avatar) and Greta Gerwig (Barbie) recently sat down together to talk about movies and directing in a recent episode of Variety’s Directors on Directors series. During their conversation, Cameron revealed a huge action sequence that he originally had planned for his action comedy True Lies. This is described as a big James Bond-style action scene involving Arnold Schwarzenegger skiing a helicopter down a snowy mountain. It sounds like it would’ve been a wild sequence, but it ended up being cut at the last minute before shooting. Cameron explained the elaborate scene, saying:
“Sometimes compromises lead to something that actually works. When we were making ‘True Lies,’ we had this elaborate setpiece that was going to take place up in these snowy mountains. There was skiing and a crashed helicopter. [Arnold Schwarzenegger] winds up skiing a helicopter on its skids down the mountain — a big James Bond sequence. We shot one night in the mountains. I had this horrific image that we were going to be there for three weeks. We were already behind schedule. At that point, I knew we just wouldn’t hit our release date if we stayed there. I got the crew together in the hotel the next morning. I said, ‘We’re going to finish the scene tonight. The helicopter’s out, this is out, that’s out. He shoots two guys, jumps in the van, they drive away.’ We finished it in one night.”
Sure, what they ended up doing worked, and I get that he didn’t want to fall more behind schedule, but the thought of Schwarzenegger skiing down a mountain on a helicopter sounds awesome, and I would have loved to see it! It feels like we lost something really cool with that being cut, as it could’ve been one of those classic big movie action sequences!
The movie still ended up being great, though, and it had lots of other memorable action scenes, but I still would’ve liked to see the one that was cut! When making movies, though, you have to make compromises.
Gerwig talked about the decision-making and compromise stories she wants to hear more of, saying: “I look at these stories [of directors], and I feel like they stuck to their guns. I said to my producer, David Heyman, ‘You should start circulating more stories about directors who compromise and it works out. The only stories I hear are of directors who say, ‘No, we’re going to do it this way.’”
Both of the directors make it clear that while we often hear stories of filmmakers “sticking to their guns,” filmmaking is also a collaborative art form that is filled with compromises.
