Summary
- Martin Sheen will narrate the Ghosts of Hiroshima audiobook.
- The film adaptation centers on a Hiroshima survivor journeying to Nagasaki.
- Release will coincide with the 80th anniversary of the 1945 bombings.
Eight months after its announcement, James Cameron’s upcoming Ghosts of Hiroshima film has added an Emmy Award-winning actor under its umbrella.
Originally revealed in September 2024, Ghosts of Hiroshima is an ambitious film adaptation of Charles Pellegrino’s forthcoming audiobook, although the project has been in gestation for more than fifteen years, since James Cameron himself met with a Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivor. The narrative centers on a Japanese man who miraculously survives the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and, while journeying by train to Nagasaki, endures another nuclear catastrophe.
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Martin Sheen Will Narrate Ghosts of Hiroshima
The 84-Year-Old Has Had Some Iconic Roles Over The Years
The audio version of Pellegrino’s Ghosts of Hiroshima is set to release on August 5—the 80th anniversary of the 1945 Hiroshima bombings—and Cameron has already purchased the rights. As reported by Deadline, three-time Emmy winner Martin Sheen will lend his iconic voice to the narration. “Martin Sheen is my dream come true to read this book for audio…his voice-over narration for Apocalypse Now still haunts me, and for a subject this dark, he will give it the gravitas and humanity that it needs,” says Cameron to Deadline.
No doubt, Cameron’s film will be heavily influenced by Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a Japanese engineer who is the only officially recognized survivor of both atomic blasts. Cameron’s meeting with Yamachugi, during the engineer’s final days in the hospital before his passing in 2010, left an indelible impression. “He was handing the baton of his personal story to us, so I have to do it. I can’t turn away from it,” Cameron explained.
Martin Sheen’s illustrious career encompasses a variety of roles beyond the iconic war movie, Apocalypse Now. JFK, Gandhi, and Catch Me If You Can are examples of films enriched by the 84-year-old's vocals, as well as documentaries such as Straight Up: Helicopters in Action and Bringing Down a Dictator. Simpsons fans may also recognize him as the “real” Seymour Skinner in the "The Principal and the Pauper" episode.
For a generation of cinephiles who have associated Cameron with the Avatar films and their Na’vi-filled Pandora planet, a dark film about the survivors of one of history’s greatest horrors is quite significant for both fans and the filmmaker himself; it will be his first non-Avatar film since 1997’s Titanic. However, no one should expect this project in theaters earlier than 2031, when Avatar 5 is scheduled to debut. Cameron is known for taking his time with his projects, and for now, the Na'vi are his priority. It will be no less interesting to witness his nuclear phobia play out once again, having been a key part in Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. A Cameron film is almost always guaranteed to be a box office darling, and industry analysts would be expecting nothing less from Ghosts of Hiroshima—a billion-dollar gross might be a huge ask, though.
Source: Deadline