It is said that James Cameron has a fiery reputation in Hollywood, and the director remembered one particular incident that shows why.
James Cameron had a lot of fights when he tried to bring the original avatar to screen. A Fox executive pushed him a little too far after pleading with the director to shorten the film, causing Cameron to lose his cool. While talking to GK about his return to the world of avatar in Avatar: the way of the waterCameron revealed the moment he told a Fox executive, “get the motherfucker out of my office.”
avatar cemented its place in movie history in 2009 as the seemingly unbeatable, highest-grossing film. Of course, a decade later, it would temporarily lose its crown to the powerful Avengers: endgame, but has managed to regain that title, aided by a re-release of the film this fall. The movie might not have been as epic if a Fox exec had gotten his wish of a shorter running time, but Cameron was firm. He explained:
“I said something I’ve never said to anyone else in the company. I think this movie is going to make all the damn money. And when it does, it will be too late to love the movie. Today is the time to love the movie. So I’m not asking you to say something you don’t feel, but just know that I’ll always know that no matter how complimentary you are about the movie in the future when it brings in all the money.
And that’s exactly what I said, in capital letters, ALL THE MONEY, not part of the money, all the damn money. I said, ‘You can’t come back to me and compliment the movie or sing along and say, ‘Look what we did together.’ You’re not going to succeed.’ At that point, that particular studio manager freaked out and went over to me. And I told him to get the hell out of my office. And that was it.”
Avatar: the way of the water is longer than Cameron’s original film
Despite those reservations from the unnamed Fox executive, Disney doesn’t seem to have had a problem with that avatars continuation. This is especially telling when Avatar: the way of the water runs at 192 minutes long, making it one of Hollywood’s longest theatrical releases ever.
For Cameron, there’s something about making movies that just keep going. From Terminator 2: doomsday until Aliens and the even longer director’s cut, and of course, Titanic, which left the audience’s bums so stunned it looked like she was floating in icy water. Regarding Avatar: the way of the water, the director says the runtime is more than justified by the depth of the story he had to tell in the film. He said earlier:
“The goal is to tell an extremely compelling story on an emotional basis. I would say the emphasis in the new movie is more on character, more on story, more on relationships, more on emotion. We didn’t spend as much time on relationships and emotions in the first movie as we did in the second movie, and it’s a longer movie, because there are more characters to serve. There is more story to service.”