While the world watches with bated breath the evolution of the Pandora saga, James Cameron has decided to launch a new media bomb that will make fans of classic science fiction happy. The director of Titanic e Terminator has in fact confirmed that one of his longest-running and ambitious projects is finally coming out of production “limbo”: the remake of Disturbing Journey (Fantastic Voyage).
Ithe original 1966 film, directed by Richard Fleischer, is considered one such milestone for the revolutionary idea of a team of scientists who, aboard a miniaturized submarine, are injected into the human body to perform a life-saving operation from the inside. Cameron has been chasing this vision since the late 1990s and, after decades of false alarms and the rotation of various illustrious names, officially confirmed that production is now in an extremely concrete phase. The director stated that he is busy in this period with a colleague to refine the new version of the screenplay, ensuring that the film will be made.
James Cameron and the “Haunting Journey”: is the remake of the sci-fi cult finally a reality?
Making a film set almost entirely inside the human body in the 1960s was an unprecedented technical challenge. The director Richard Fleischerwhich he had previously directed for Disney Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seadecided not to use traditional animation, but to build huge physical sets. To simulate the blood vessels, heart and brain, tons of plastic, fiberglass and colored lights were used. The actors, including a very young one Raquel Welch in the role that launched her as a global icon, they were literally hung from very thin steel cables and made to “fly” to simulate swimming in blood plasma. This artisanal dedication earned the film two Oscar awards: one for Best Special Effects and one for Best Production Design.
Many mistakenly believe that the film is based on a novel by Isaac Asimovbut the reality is the opposite. The original screenplay was by Harry Kleiner, based on an idea by Otto Klement and Jerome Bixby. The publishing house Bantam Books, wanting to launch a book at the same time as the film, commissioned Asimov to do the “novelization”. The writer, however, was so quick that his book came out six months before its theatrical debut, leading audiences to think the film was an adaptation. Asimov, as a rigorous scientist, had to correct several “poetic licenses” of the script to make it minimally plausible, such as explaining why the shrunken objects did not violate the laws of physics.
Beneath the surface of a medical adventure, the film is steeped in the political climate of the time. The plot revolves around scientist Jan Benes, the only one who knows the secret to making miniaturization permanent, who falls into a coma after an assassination attempt while trying to defect from the Soviet Union. The mission of the submarine Proteus it is therefore not just an act of medical heroism, but a high-risk espionage operation. Having a saboteur on board adds an element of paranoid thriller typical of 60s cinema, where the enemy could hide anywhere, even within a rescue group.
Even though almost sixty years have passed, the aesthetics of Disturbing Journey remained in the collective imagination, influencing dozens of subsequent works, from cartoons such as And Simpson e Futurama up to films like Leap in the dark (1987). Its appeal lies in its ability to transform human biology into an alien landscape, a “frontier” that James Cameron seems intent on re-mapping with the almost limitless means of contemporary cinema.
Although Cameron has not yet officially revealed who will sit behind the camera, the world of cinema is betting about a flashback with Guillermo del Toro or on the hiring of a visionary talent capable of managing the producer’s obsessive attention to technology. The choice to proceed now is not a coincidence: Cameron has always maintained that he wanted to wait for the moment when the visual effects were mature enough to do justice to the complexity of the human anatomy. Thanks to the progress achieved with the saga of Avatarthat technological goal finally seems to be within reach.
The new Disturbing Journey it does not promise to be a simple nostalgia operation, but an immersive experience which will take advantage of native 3D and the most modern motion capture techniques to transform the human body into a final, unexplored frontier. The production will be handled by Lightstorm Entertainment and the script is expected to update the original themes adapting them to the medical discoveries and bioethical dilemmas of the twenty-first century. If the timetable is respected, filming could begin as early as 2026, marking Cameron’s return to more earthly but no less spectacular science fiction territories.
