Back Into the ‘Abyss’ : As Hollywood Waits for New Work, Cameron Surfaces With Longer Cut of ’89 Film

In July, it will be two years since “Terminator 2--Judgment Day” opened in theaters across the United States, triggering a box-office bonanza that now has reached $500 million worldwide.

Although director James Cameron had previously achieved much success with “Aliens” and “The Terminator,” “T2”--as it came to be dubbed--solidified his reputation as a master of high-tech action films and a proven moneymaker.

The 38-year-old writer-director became Hollywood’s golden boy and last year signed a five-year, 12-picture deal with 20th Century Fox valued at $500 million. The studio gave Cameron the power to put movies into production without Fox’s approval (called green-lighting). Then Hollywood sat back and waited to see what megahit Cameron would bring forth next.

The town is still waiting.

It may sound puzzling, but the first Cameron film that Fox will release since the deal was signed is “The Abyss,” a 1989 undersea science-fiction thriller starring Ed Harris and Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. Although the movie grossed $60 million at the domestic box office, it failed to become the blockbuster that Fox envisioned and disappointed critics.

But on Friday, Fox will release a longer “special edition” of the film at Century Plaza Cinemas in Century City and at a theater in New York in advance to distributing the movie on laser disc. But some speculate that the move is an attempt by Fox to massage Cameron’s ego, a contention even Cameron does not fully dispute.

“There is probably an element of that,” Cameron said. “They want to preserve relationships and they should, because if I was in their position I’d do the same thing.”

Cameron insists that this is not just another case of a director seeking vindication for a pet project that failed to live up to expectations. He has restored about 27 minutes of scenes throughout the movie, many of which were unfinished and required new audio work and other changes.

Included is a four-minute tidal wave sequence near the end of the film in which the underwater aliens threaten to inundate several large U.S. cities and a naval base because the humans onshore are dangerously close to annihilating the Earth in a thermonuclear war. The movie was made before the breakup of the Soviet Union, but Cameron said nuclear war is just as threatening today, given strife in the new republics and tensions in the Middle East.

Also inserted throughout the film are sequences that build relationships between Harris (who plays rig foreman Bud Brigman) and Mastrantonio (estranged wife Valerie Brigman) and introduce minor characters in more detail.

“I feel it’s a better movie now,” Cameron said. “It’s a more fulfilling movie for me and it actually does work.”

But don’t think that Cameron has been laboring for the past year just to bring forth 27 extra minutes of “The Abyss.”

Although it was not part of the five-year deal, Cameron had begun work on “The Crowded Room,” a small, character-driven film with John Cusack about a serial rapist who was arrested and would have been convicted if he had not been found innocent by reason of insanity because he was beset by multiple personalities. Cameron was forced to shut down the project after pre-production fights with executive producer Sandra Arcara resulted in litigation.

Cameron stressed, however, that “The Crowded Room” was not the main reason Hollywood has had to wait to see a new film from him.

“Basically, I took a year out, which is the time it would take me to make a movie, and made a company,” he said in a wide-ranging interview at his Santa Monica firm, Lightstorm Entertainment.

In an industry that has seen many high-flying movie companies crash and burn, Cameron has methodically hired executives, built a business infrastructure and forged investment deals he believes are needed to make Lightstorm viable for years to come.

“Every director and producer out there says they have a production company,” Cameron said. “Almost none of them do. What they truly have is a personal services corporation, which has a development deal with a studio. They don’t have direct access to finance. They don’t have 100% green-light capability. They can’t snap their fingers and make a $50-million movie without asking somebody.”

Because of his extraordinary deal at Fox, questions have naturally arisen over whether Cameron will feel comfortable working with new studio chief Peter Chernin. Chernin was installed in his post late last year by Rupert Murdoch after the departure of Joe Roth, who left the company after landing his own big production deal at Disney.

“Ask me two or three years from now how well we’re getting along,” Cameron said. “Right now, it’s the first date and everybody is being polite. Let’s see how he runs the studio, how he does in the next few years and the kind of support Murdoch gives and what budgets they give us for prints and ads and that sort of thing.”

Cameron said that with Hollywood’s penchant for studio hopping, any deal he struck with Roth would have to be based on the company, not an individual.

Cameron said so far he has nothing but praise for the marketing and distribution departments at Fox, which are run by Andrea Jaffe, his former publicist, and Tom Sherak, respectively.

“Andrea Jaffe has been the head of marketing there about a year,” he said. “I’ve kept a very close watch on all the campaigns they’ve created. I think they’ve done a phenomenal job for every film, even the ones that didn’t succeed. . . . I liked the campaign for ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer.’ ”

Under his deal, Fox will distribute a maximum of 12 films either produced, directed or written by Cameron, although he added that realistically the number will probably be “eight or nine.” One thing is for sure. None of them will be “Terminator 3.”

“It was seven years between the first and the second one,” he said. “So, that means somewhere around six years from now, I’ll start thinking about it again. I think Arnold (Schwarzenegger) would like to do it at some point. I know Linda (Hamilton) would like to do it at some point. . . . We’d have to take a clear look at the budget issues.”

The problem, he said, is that a sequel typically means more money for all involved.

“Look at Eddie Murphy and ‘Beverly Hills Cop III,’ ” Cameron said, referring to the $70-million sequel that Paramount Pictures abruptly postponed. “They reached a threshold that we reached on ‘Terminator 2.’ They went one way and we went the other. They lacked confidence that the film would perform and they didn’t go forward. We said, ‘Do you know how much this film is going to cost? Do you know how much it would have to see to make a profit?’ ” Cameron recalled that everyone looked at one another and blurted out: “Come on! It’s gonna make the money! Let’s go for it!”

But while “Terminator 3” may be far off in the future, Cameron said he is “writing like a madman” and hopes to team with Schwarzenegger in an action comedy, the details of which he won’t reveal. Cameron said he hopes to have his ex-wife, Kathryn Bigelow (who directed “Point Break”), direct a “high-tech thriller that takes place in the near future” for release in the spring or summer of 1994.

In the meantime, he has worked on “The Abyss.”

When he made the original version, Cameron said, he was under pressure to reduce the running time. “The studio wasn’t telling me what to do,” he says. “They were saying, ‘We’ve got to make it shorter because it’s not going to be successful. Exhibitors will freak out.’ ”

Cameron said he had a choice: remove the tidal wave and the portions of the script that lend it coherence, or whittle down the love story and remove a gripping segment in which Bud Brigman allows his ex-wife to drown and then frantically tries to revive her.

“I knew that with the scene of Mary drowning and Ed bringing her back to life, I had sort of captured lightning in a bottle from a performance standpoint,” Cameron said. “The most logical thing to take out was the drowning scene, because it’s the one thing that is really kind of a divergence in the story line.”

Adding to Cameron’s dilemma was that two focus groups (one in Dallas and the other in Pacoima) were almost split over whether the tidal wave scenes should be kept in.

“These test market screenings are a dangerous thing,” he said. “In this case, it wasn’t the studio messing with me. It was me messing with me. It was me losing perspective and becoming reliant on a process. I had never used test market screenings to influence my own thinking. I didn’t understand how to use the tool.”

Although Fox is opening the movie in only two theaters in New York and Los Angeles, they may give it a wider release if it finds an audience. Cameron said he told Fox executives that adding the footage would cost $300,000 and asked if the laser disc market would cover expenses. They looked at the success that Warner Bros. had last year with Ridley Scott’s cut of “Blade Runner” and gave Cameron the go-ahead.

Meanwhile, the director says, although all directors are under pressure to succeed, he felt more pressure when he wrote “The Terminator” than he feels now. But he knows he has boxed himself into a curious corner.

“A filmmaker can go down certain paths,” Cameron said. “Like Oliver Stone, some have to succeed critically. I’ve gone down a certain path where I don’t need to succeed critically. I need to succeed financially.”