In 1981 a young Canadian filmmaker got his first big break when he was asked to direct a cheap horror movie that featured ferocious flesh-eating fish and lots of bikini-clad women.
James Cameron has come a long way since working on Piranha II: The Spawning . The release this weekend of Avatar, his first film in a decade, has been hailed as a transformative event in modern cinema because it is the first live-action blockbuster to be filmed using 3-D technology.
With a production and marketing cost of $425m (€297m, £264m), Avatar is among the most expensive films ever made. It is also a bet that audiences will respond to 3-D - and that Mr Cameron, director of Aliens and the first two Terminator films, still has what it takes.