James Cameron Explains How He Wrote RAMBO II and ALIENS at The Same Time
Anyone who tells you that writing is an easy job is lying, crazy or insanely good at it. I stress over writing even if I have no deadline. James Cameron, on the other hand, apparently could take the stress of writing and turn it into awesomeness.
During an interview for the documentary The Inspiration and Design of Aliens, Cameron talks about how he came up with the outline for Aliens, one of the best sci-fi movies EVER (at least in my opinion). However, that wasn’t the only thing he was working on — he was also writing Rambo: First Blood Part II at the same time. Thanks to EW, we have a clip from the doc in which Cameron explains how he handled working on both writing jobs at once:
"So I wound up getting two writing gigs the same day. One was Rambo: First Blood Part II and the other one was Alien 2. Like I'd gone in on the meetings and I wound up getting the phone calls the same morning. So I took both jobs and I had a three month period to write Rambo and what became Aliens. So what I did was I got a desk for each script. I put one in the bedroom and one in the living room. That way when I moved from one desk to the other, all the notes and papers and everything were right where they were supposed to be."
He also explains that he listened to different kinds of music while writing each script. I think that his process worked out great for not only him but for us also. You can watch this whole documentary when you buy the 30th anniversary limited edition Aliens Blu-ray, which is where part of my next paycheck is going to.