Brendan Fraser’s 2008 Film That He Fixed Was Secretly a ‘Test’ for James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’
Movie director and Oscar-winner James Cameron managed to break his own box-office records when he delivered Avatar to the big screen.
But before it hit theaters, Cameron used Brendan Fraser’s popular hit as a sort of guinea pig for Avatar.
Brendan Fraser originally thought the script for ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ was ‘daft’
Fraser once had a starring role in the sci-fi feature Journey to the Center of the Earth. The movie was based on a short story by French novelist Jules Verne. In the adaptation, Fraser played a professor who attempts to escape a cavern he finds himself trapped inside of. On his way out, Fraser’s professor encounters several creatures and obstacles that threaten his life.
Fraser admitted that when he first received the script, it was a concept he didn’t think much of.
“Verne was arguably science fiction’s creator. We’ve seen the film before; it’s slightly, as the British say, ‘daft’. I say that with affection. I didn’t arch my eyebrow at it, I didn’t turn my nose up to it because I don’t know an actor who doesn’t like to work,” Fraser once told Pop Entertainment.
But after deciding to do the film, he offered his own input to the script to help improve its story.
“So I went to a bookstore, got the last copy of an anthology of Verne and thumbed through it as fast as I could. [But there were a few problems with the script I read so] I realized that the answer was right there in the book, like they say, in the world of the film,” Fraser said.
Fraser’s suggestions were so helpful that the film’s director, Eric Brevig, was impressed by the actor’s creativity.
“I was surprised that he was so smart that he was aware of how to fix some of the shortcomings of the script,” Brevig once told the Los Angeles Times. “I had been meeting with development executives for months and no one said this.”
Brendan Fraser’s ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ was secretly a test for James Cameron’s ‘Avatar’
What convinced Fraser to do the film in the first place, despite his heavy reservations, was the technology behind Journey. Fraser did a doubletake when he heard that the film would be shot in 3-D.
“I thought 3-D was when you wore red and blue glasses and watched the movie and it made you a little bit queasy after a while and you went home and said, ‘Why did I spend my money for that? Anyway, let’s get back to paying taxes and stuff.’ I wasn’t sure what the technology held, [but] I was hooked [on the idea of it],” he said.
In a resurfaced Q & A with Anthem, Fraser once again gushed about the groundbreaking technology used for the film.
“I’m not just saying this for bragging rights—I swear to god—but Journey to the Center of the Earth was the first live-action 3D feature film stocked in a digital format,” Fraser said.
Fraser also revealed that Cameron himself stopped by while they were doing Journey. Fraser’s film was using the kind of equipment that Cameron also used for his Avatar epic.
“When James Cameron visited our set, he wasn’t bragging when he declared it as his prototype. That made some people on the crew go, ‘Huh? We thought we were the innovators here.’ In reality, the cameras belonged to James and he used Journey to the Center of the Earth as a beta test for Avatar. That’s a fact,” Fraser said.
Why Brendan Fraser was replaced by Dwayne Johnson for the ‘Journey to the Center of the Earth’ sequel
The film was successful enough to warrant a second movie. But Journey 2: The Mystery Island would see Dwayne Johnson replacing his Mummy co-star as the lead. Deadline once reported that the film’s original director couldn’t meet the 2011 release-date the studio had planned for the movie. A new director would end up replacing Brevig. Fraser reportedly would’ve only done the second movie if Brevig was still involved. So after Brevig’s exit, Fraser allegedly followed suit.
