James Cameron is a renowned director, famous for his works such as Titanic and Avatar. However, before he became the legendary director we know today, he was a budding writer with a promising future. One of his early works was the script for Rambo: First Blood Part II, which he co-wrote with Sylvester Stallone.
At the time, Cameron was busy writing other iconic movies such as Alien and Terminator. Stallone took the opportunity to tweak Cameron’s initial script for the second Rambo movie to fit his character more.
As a result, he threw out many of Cameron’s scenes and introduced the explosive-tipped arrows that became a defining feature of the Rambo franchise.
While the changes made by Stallone led to a hugely successful movie, Cameron was not pleased with the alterations to his original vision.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, he said, “I admire the success of the movie, and I’m happy for everyone involved, but I always have to distance myself from it because it’s not the movie I wrote. The script I wrote was pretty violent, but not in such an amoral way.”
Cameron’s displeasure with Stallone’s changes to his script suggests that he values creative control and has a strong vision for his projects. It is a sentiment that is shared by many artists and creators who want their work to be portrayed as they envisioned it.
Although the second Rambo movie was a box-office success, we will never know if it would have been as successful if the script had not been altered by Stallone. Nonetheless, Cameron’s talent and creativity have propelled him to become one of the most celebrated filmmakers of our time.
