James Cameron Almost Played An Important Role In John Carpenter's The Thing

It's hard to picture two directors as different as James Cameron and John Carpenter. They've worked in similar genres (sci-fi and horror), but their attitudes lie on opposite poles. Cameron, who's famously an intense director, is still in the game and always innovating to make his "Avatar" movies exactly the way he wants to.

Carpenter, meanwhile, is in his "doesn't give an f" era. He's retired (his last film was 2010's "The Ward") because he'd rather play video games and collect royalties. And who can blame him? The man changed the horror game while dropping masterpiece after masterpiece in the '80s (see our list of the best John Carpenter movies here). He's earned time to enjoy the leisurely fruits of his success. 

Would you believe that Cameron and Carpenter have worked together before? In 1981, while Cameron was a special effects grunt at New World Pictures (founded by B-movie king Roger Corman), he worked on Carpenter's dystopian action movie "Escape From New York" as a matte painter and member of the special effects team. "[Cameron] was the resident genius. Everybody was talking about how good he was," Carpenter recalled in a behind-the-scenes feature included with the 2018 4k re-release of "Escape From New York."

Cameron and Carpenter's paths almost crossed again on Carpenter's 1982 horror film "The Thing." For the 40th anniversary of "The Thing" in 2022, writer Josh Weiss assembled an oral history published on Syfy (the article has been updated with later interviews since its original publication). Had things gone another way, Cameron would've designed the movie's title card. The title card probably wouldn't have looked much different in this counterfactual, though, since Cameron would have made it to Carpenter's specifications.

John Carpenter's "The Thing" is a remake of the 1951 B-movie "The Thing From Another World." That movie's title card begins as a blank black void before light starts shining through revealing the letters "The Thing." Carpenter, a fan of the original film, wanted to use that same title effect for his remake.

The title card for Carpenter's "The Thing," which uses the same font and letters-burning-into-paper effect as the original, was designed by Peter Kuran of VCE Films. He used a fish tank, an 1,000-watt light bulb, and a black garbage bag.

"I put the title on the back of the fish tank using animation black ink in the cel to make the title. When I'd start the camera, I'd run behind and touch the garbage bag plastic with a couple of matches. The matches would make a hole; they would burn and open up and reveal the light, which then came through the title [making] the rays in the fish tank."

See the results below:

Universal Pictures

Kuran's ingenuity is undeniable, but he got the job because he put in a low bid ($20,000). His competitor? New World Pictures. If they'd gotten the job, it would've been Cameron designing the title card. Soon after "The Thing," Cameron made his own breakthrough as a director, "The Terminator" — a movie inspired by Carpenter. "John Carpenter was the guy I idolized the most. He made 'Halloween' for $30,000 or something. That was everyone's break-in dream, to do a stylish horror movie," Cameron recalled.

Cameron hasn't broken the winning streak that "The Terminator" kickstarted even forty years later. Since he became his own boss, he was too big to work under the director he'd "idolized." They'll always have "Escape From New York."