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(1955– ). American producer.
Also: Assistant production manager, Battle beyond the Stars (Jimmy Murakami 1980). Production assistant, Humanoids from the Deep (Barbara Peters 1980), Alligator (Lewis Teague 1980). Executive consultant, Tremors 2: Aftershocks (video) (S. S. Wilson 1995).
She entered the industry as a protégé of Roger CORMAN, serving as
assistant production manager for his Battle
beyond the Stars and co-producing Smokey
Bites the Dust (1981) with him, but something in her background—perhaps, her distinguished education at Stanford University—imbued
her with a stronger desire for class and quality than her erstwhile
mentor ever displayed. Forming an alliance with, and marrying, James
CAMERON, she co-wrote and produced The
Terminator, surely the most unlikely film to ever end up
on major critics' top-ten lists. A movie starring Arnold SCHWARZENEGGER
as a killing machine from the future hardly sounds promising, but
Cameron and Hurd made it intelligent and involving (though they were
belatedly obliged, after a lawsuit, to acknowledge their debt to a
story by Harlan ELLISON). Their success with
the film led to another rewarding assignment, Aliens,
where they effectively abandoned the horror-movie framework of the
original Alien (1979) and instead created a rousing
science fiction war movie, with Sigourney WEAVER as its tough but
caring commanding officer. But the Cameron-Hurd partnership floundered
when they went under the sea into The
Abyss; while better than many reports suggest, the film
suffered because it uneasily blended the genres of submarine drama
and sentimental fantasy, the sort of film that might result from randomly
shuffling together pages from the scripts of Crimson Tide and E.T. Its radically shifting moods perhaps
reflected some heated arguments between the director and producer;
and certainly, anyone observing the film's subplot about a collapsing
marriage must ponder the potential autobiographical resonances.
Even before her relationship with Cameron ended, Hurd started to produce films with other directors, beginning with Bad Dreams, an unremarkable slasher film, and the more successful Alien Nation, a film that, for all its panache, is little more than a routine cop drama with some characters in alien masks, not much above the level of Gerry ANDERSON's Space Precinct. More noteworthy is Tremors—the Citizen Kane of giant earthworm movies—a movie that immediately decides exactly how serious it wants to be and maintains that tone throughout its horrific setpieces and obligatory character development scenes, also making good use of a limited special effects budget and an uneven cast. (She went on, as an "Executive Consultant," to offer advice—evidently, not enough advice—to the producers of the film's inferior direct-to-video sequel, Tremors 2: Aftershocks.) Other worthwhile products of her early solo career included No Escape, an exciting science fiction adventure in the Terminator mode, and Cast a Deadly Spell, a clever tale of sorcery in the form of a film noir detective film (which generated a sequel, Witch Hunt). However, in a brief partnership with another director-husband, Hurd was unable to prevent Brian DE PALMA from Raising Cain.
There is no discernible pattern in her more recent efforts, which vary in quality and sometimes venture beyond the fantastic territory that was once her specialty. While Armageddon is frenetically entertaining, if not thought-provoking, it is hard to see how the producer of The Terminator and Tremors could have presided over halfhearted exercises like
Dante's Peak and The Relic. Perhaps, as she becomes more prominent as a mover and shaker in Hollywood, Hurd is evolving into the more distant sort of producer, who limits her involvement in films to making deals and writing checks. If this is the case, one can only hope that the spectacular failure of the teen comedy Dick (1999) will persuade Hurd to
choose future projects that better match her talents, and to spend some more time on the set.
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