James Cameron had to fight for runtime of ‘Avatar’ with Fox Executives
Director James Cameron is grateful to his fans and friends, as well as to those who backed him (and those who didn’t).
During a furious dispute about the length of his record-breaking 2009 epic blockbuster Avatar, the 68-year-old Academy Award-winning director confessed to GQ in an interview published on Monday that he told a Fox official to “get the f— out of my office.”
Cameron described a conversation he had with a Fox executive, “who will go unnamed, because this is a really negative review.” prior to the release of Avatar: The Way of Water.
An executive reportedly approached Cameron after an early screening of the original film with a “stricken cancer-diagnosis expression,” referring to the film’s duration of two hours and 42 minutes.
In Cameron’s words, “I said something I’ve never said to anybody else in the business, ‘I think this movie is going to make all the f—ing 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.’ “
Then he said, ” ‘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—ing 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 s— on me. And I told him to get the f— out of my office. And that’s where it was left,” As Cameron put it.
Box Office Mojo reports that Avatar’s domestic opening weekend of $77,025,481 was a record-breaker, validating Cameron’s gut instincts and proving profitable for the company. Since its initial 2009 release, the picture has been shown several times in theatres, contributing to its almost $3 billion worldwide total.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the debut of Avatar: The Way of Water will take place on December 16 and will have a running time of three hours and ten minutes.
In an interview with Empire, Cameron forewarned viewers about the sequel’s length, saying, “want anybody whining about length when they sit and binge-watch [television] for eight hours.”
“It’s like, give me a f—ing break. I’ve watched my kids sit and do five one-hour episodes in a row. Here’s the big social paradigm shift that has to happen: It’s okay to get up and go pee,” Cameron stated.
On December 16, you may see Avatar: The Way of Water in theatres.