James Cameron revealed in a recent interview with The New York Times that he shut down 20th Century Fox executives when they tried to battle him over a key sequence in “Avatar.” Cameron rejected the studio’s notes to make the film shorter and to trim the movie’s flying sequences by telling executives that he directed “Titanic” and thus paid for a large portion of the 20th Century Fox studio lot.

“I think I felt, at the time, that we clashed over certain things,” Cameron said. “For example, the studio felt that the film should be shorter and that there was too much flying around on the ikran — what the humans call the banshees. Well, it turns out that’s what the audience loved the most, in terms of our exit polling and data gathering. And that’s a place where I just drew a line in the sand and said, ‘You know what? I made ‘Titanic.’ This building that we’re meeting in right now, this new half-billion dollar complex on your lot? ‘Titanic’ paid for that, so I get to do this.’”

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Read more: Variety