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‘Get The F*ck Out Of My Office’: James Cameron Says He Cursed Out Studio Exec In Meeting

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Leena Nasir Entertainment Reporter
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James Cameron cursed out a Fox executive who told him to make “Avatar” shorter and ended up kicking him right out of his office.

There was tension between the director and 20th Century Fox during the making of ‘Avatar.’ Cameron said an executive from Fox “begged” him to shorten the movie months before the epic film was scheduled for release in theaters in 2009, according to a recent interview with GQ. Cameron was insulted about the suggestion and he pushed back against the executive. “I said something I’ve never said to anybody else in the business,” Cameron said to GQ. “I told him to get the f*ck out of my office. And that’s where it was left,” Cameron said. The film ended up running a full 162 minutes and shattered box office records around the world.

Cameron said the executive saw a pre-release screening of “Avatar” and that was when he approached him with what Cameron described as a “stricken cancer-diagnosis expression” and asked him to shorten the film. The executive would “go unnamed because this is a really negative review,” Cameron said, as he told his story to GQ.

Cameron had a feeling he was on the cusp of something big with the release of “Avatar,” so he pushed through with the direction he felt was best for his movie.

”I think this movie is going to make all the fucking money. And when it does, it’s going to be too late for you to love the film, “Cameron said. “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,” he said. (RELATED: Reboot Of Arnold Schwarzenegger Classic ‘True Lies’ Looks Utterly Incredible)

Cameron reiterated his position and made sure the executive knew his words had left a lasting impression on him.

“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,” Cameron said. It was at that point that he booted the executive out of his office.

Cameron has gone on to create the sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” which runs 30 minutes longer than the original and has a run time of three hours at 10 minutes, according to Variety.

“Avatar: The Way of Water” opens in theaters Dec. 16.