How James Cameron found himself at the bottom of "The Abyss"

By the time James Cameron’s “The Abyss” hit theaters on Aug. 9, 1989, a month later than initially intended, moviegoers were more aware of the film’s myriad production troubles than its actual story. Most of the reporting in the lead-up to its release focused on the writer-director’s autocratic management of the largely underwater set (built in two abandoned nuclear containment tanks). 

It was a grueling shoot. Actors were forced to wait hours in heavily chlorinated water while Cameron and his crew worked out technically complex shots. Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and Ed Harris both experienced mental breakdowns, the latter after being towed 30 feet underwater in a flooded diving suit. For most of the cast and crew, “The Abyss” wasn’t a gig. It was a crucible. What movie is worth this?

Meanwhile, 20^th Century Fox’s renowned marketing department —which, the year prior, turned “Die Hard” into a box office smash despite audiences’ skepticism about TV comedy star Bruce Willis playing an action hero (yes, this was a legitimate concern) — was crying uncle. "The Abyss" one-sheet was simply an aggressive title treatment slapped against a darkening blue background; up top was a tagline promising "this summer’s most original adventure" from the director of "The Terminator" and "Aliens." The theatrical trailer led with behind-the-scenes footage from the “challenging” production before cutting to randomly selected footage that did little to explicate the plot. Fox was selling a mystery (submersibles, nukes and aliens, oh my), but its in-residence filmmaker wasn’t enough of a brand name 30 years ago to get anyone outside of his die hards to take that leap of faith.

So for the first and last time in his career, James Cameron ate s**t at the box office.*

Unmentioned in the major pieces about the on-set trials and tribulations were the 30 minutes Cameron had been forced to cut from "The Abyss." Viewers who’d felt the theatrical cut ended abruptly, with zero explanation as to why the aliens had set up shop several miles underwater, had their suspicions confirmed when it was revealed the film was supposed to conclude with the luminescent ETs demanding global nuclear disarmament via massive tsunamis poised to clobber the Earth’s major coastal cities. 

No wonder the film didn’t entirely work! Cameron had gutted it to appease distributors who were resistant to a three-hour runtime! Hardcore fans were incensed. The visionary’s $43 million labor of love, which drove a portion of the crew crazy and nearly drowned poor Harris, was suddenly the sci-fi "Magnificent Ambersons."

When Fox finally released the extended cut of "The Abyss" to Laserdisc in 1993, it was obvious this wasn’t the case. Though Cameron and visual f/x supervisor Dennis Muren had spearheaded a mind-blowing advancement in photorealistic CG with the "morphing" water tentacle sequence, the excised tsunami set piece — with its scrambling extras and unconvincing sense of scale — fell flat. Worse, the aliens’ "Day the Earth Stood Still" ultimatum not only felt tacked on, but it also knocked the focus away from the blue-collar characters of the Deep Core drilling rig, where Cameron’s heart clearly resided.

This was the unresolvable problem of the film. Cameron once told Premiere’s John H. Richardson, "I like using hard-core technological means to create an emotion." "The Abyss" presents the perfect embodiment of this philosophy. Deep Core was brilliantly designed by Lindsey Brigman (Mastrantonio) and masterfully operated by Bud Brigman (Harris). It is their child. Metaphorically the events of "The Abyss" represent a custody battle: Lindsey envisions greater things for their progeny (helping the military recover a disabled nuclear sub), while Bud wants to stick to the family business. The crew members are the extended family, and they resent Lindsey’s topside ambitions because she abandoned them. But she’s the mom (in her own words, a "cast-iron bitch"), and she has the final say. The powerless Bud is so infuriated that he rifles his wedding ring into a toilet— and yet, after a beat, he digs into the blue toilet water to retrieve it. The ring later saves his life.

Cameron’s marriage with producer Gale Anne Hurd was dissolving at the very moment "The Abyss" was shot, which makes it just about impossible to not view the film as a plea for reconciliation. "I’m a bastard, you’re a bitch, but we need each other." The best scene in the film finds Bud desperately trying to resuscitate Lindsey after she intentionally drowns in frigid water; she does so because she knows Bud, the stronger swimmer, will haul her ass back to Deep Core and do everything he can to revive her. In this highly pressurized environment, hundreds of feet beneath the ocean’s surface, when defibrillation fails Bud literally takes matters into his own hands. He berates Lindsey. He slaps her lifeless face. He pounds her chest. "Goddamn it, you bitch! You never backed away from anything in your life! Now fight!" He does this because he needs her and cannot go on without her. When Lindsey pulls through, she gives Bud the courage to plunge to the bottom of the trench to disable the nuke, where, but for the intervention of the MacGuffin aliens, he is guaranteed to die.

Typically audiences do not flock to would-be blockbusters about failing marriages, but that’s the film Cameron made. The aliens and the nukes are extravagant window dressing (even in the extended version); they add suspense (particularly during the submersible recovery of the warhead stolen by Coffey**). But the film’s narrative hinges on Bud and Lindsey working through their antipathy on board the craft they willed into existence. And Cameron, with the backing of a major Hollywood studio, felt strongly enough about this that he filled two containment tanks with 10 million gallons of water over sets that weighed 40 gallons apiece and risked his still burgeoning career to tell this story. 

A commercially savvy filmmaker would’ve recognized this as folly and backed off. But Cameron plowed forward. He had to make "The Abyss." It’s the key to understanding his career.

*He was fired from “Piranha II: The Spawning," so that doesn’t count.
**”Pretty slick, slick.”