Director James Cameron has purchased the rights to an upcoming book about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.

The Oscar-winning filmmaker intends to combine Charles Pellegrino’s 2015 book Last Train From Hiroshima and his new release Ghosts of Hiroshima into one film.

According to Deadline, Cameron plans to shoot the movie, titled Last Train From Hiroshima, when production on his Avatar franchise allows.

Pellegrino’s books feature eyewitness accounts from Japanese civilian survivors and American pilots in the air, plus forensic archaeology insight.

Cameron has confirmed plans to adapt the two non-fiction books into one “uncompromising theatrical film”.

“It’s a subject that I’ve wanted to do a film about, that I’ve been wrestling with how to do it, over the years,” Cameron told Deadline.

The film will follow the true story of a Japanese man who survived two atomic bombs during World War II. Having endured the explosion in Hiroshima, he took a train to Nagasaki and subsequently lived through another blast there.

Ghosts of Hiroshima will be released by Blackstone Publishing in August 2025, in line with the 80th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb in 1945.

Last Train From Hiroshima will mark Cameron’s first non-Avatar venture since the release of the Oscar-winning blockbuster Titanic in 1997.

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