James Cameron Told Fox Exec To Get The F Out Of My Office When Asked To Reduce Avatar S Runtime

James Cameron had many fights on his hands when attempting to bring the original Avatar to screen. One Fox executive pushed him a little too far after pleading for the director to make the movie shorter, causing Cameron to lose his cool. While speaking to GQ about his return to the world of Avatar in Avatar: The Way of Water, Cameron revealed the moment he told a Fox executive to “get the f— out of my office.”

Avatar cemented its place in movie history in 2009 as the seemingly unbeatable, highest-grossing movie. Of course, a decade later, it would temporarily lose its crown to the mighty Avengers: Endgame, but has managed to regain that title back once again, helped by a re-release of the movie this fall. However, the movie may not have been as epic if one Fox exec had gotten his wish of a shorter runtime, but Cameron was resolute. He explained:

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“I said something I’ve never said to anybody else in the business. I think this movie is going to make all the f-cking money. And when it does, it’s going to be too late for you to love the film. The time for you to love the movie is today. So I’m not asking you to say something that you don’t feel, but just know that I will always know that no matter how complimentary you are about the movie in the future when it makes all the money.

And that’s exactly what I said, in caps, ALL THE MONEY, not some of the money, all the f-cking money. I said, ‘You can’t come back to me and compliment the film or chum along and say, ‘Look what we did together.’ You won’t be able to do that.’ At that point, that particular studio executive flipped out and went bug shit on me. And I told him to get the f-ck out of my office. And that’s where it was left.”

Avatar: The Way of Water is Longer Than Cameron’s Original Movie

     20th Century Studios  

Despite those reservations by the unnamed Fox executive, Disney seems to have had no such qualms when it comes to Avatar’s sequel. This is especially telling when Avatar: The Way of Water runs at 192 minutes long, making it one of Hollywood’s longest-ever theatrical releases.

For Cameron, there is a certain thing about making movies that just go on and on. From Terminator 2: Judgment Day to Aliens and its even longer director’s cut, and of course, Titanic, which left audiences bums so numb it was as though they had been floating in icy waters. Regarding Avatar: The Way of Water, the director says the runtime is more than justified by the depth of the story he had to tell in the movie. He previously said: