“Yeah. For my sins, I wrote that for Carolco [indie prod house that went bust in 1995]. I did that for the money. That film put them on the map.

I admire its success and I’m happy for everybody involved, but I always have to distance myself from it because it’s not the film I wrote. I wasn’t really vocal about it at the time, but it was substantially rewritten by Sylvester Stallone.

The script that I wrote was pretty violent, but not in such an amoral way. My work with Stallone consisted of one lunch to discuss the script. He said, ‘I think you should put a girl in it.’”

Effect On Avatar: Assume total control. Strange Days for then missus Kathryn Bigelow aside, Cameron never wrote a screenplay he didn’t direct again.