James Cameron Called James Bond a "Complete Scumbag" and Said the Films Are "Rotten at Their Core"
When James Cameron was making his awesome 1994 action comedy True Lies, he shared his thoughts on the James Bond franchise, and he’s clearly not a fan. In fact, True Lies was meant to highlight the things that he didn’t like about the 007 films.
Arnold Schwarzenegger initially pitched the idea to Cameron after he watch a 1991 French action film titled La Totale!. That movie told the story of a family man who moonlighted as a secret agent. Cameron loved the idea and developed it in a way that it could act as a subversion of the James Bond franchise.
Cameron once said in an interview with Yahoo:,“When I watched it, I got it. [Arnold] was dealing with [the idea] of, ‘I’m a husband and I’m a father, but I’m also this icon of masculinity.’ He related to it as, ‘What if James Bond had to go home to his wife and family?’”
The filmmaker then had the idea of adding comedy to the story and explained, “Arnold knew I could handle the action. But I’d never done a comedy! So I came up with crazy stuff like him doing the tango with this exotic girl he meets at this mansion party. I sent [Arnold] the script, and in the margin I put an arrow next to the tango and wrote, ‘This is your most dangerous stunt.’ I think he took it to heart, because he did learn how to tango!”
True Lies turned out to be hilarious! It’s probably my favorite action-comedy ever. Anyway, when it comes to Cameron’s harsh criticism of James Bond, this is what he said in an interview with Movieline (via: Cheat Sheet) back in 1998:
“The James Bond films are rotten at their core. The guy’s a womanizing drunk. He’s a complete scumbag, he really is. It’s male fantasy: I’m married and faithful but I’d really like to be that guy and have a different woman every other night. If you’re going to do a comedy, you don’t just send up the gadgetry. What you send up is the moral center, or the immoral center of it. What would it really be like to try and live that fantasy? It ain’t going to work because that’s not who most men really are.
“That struck me as a hysterical premise. What if James Bond was married and p****-whipped?”
What do you think about Cameron’s thoughts on James Bond and the films in the franchise?