James Cameron says he kicked a studio executive out of his office after he begged to make 'Avatar' shorter

• James Cameron recalled the time a Fox executive begged him to make "Avatar" shorter.
• "I think this movie is going to make all the fucking money," the director responded, he told GQ.

Looking back now it's hard to imagine there were any detractors to James Cameron's 3D epic "Avatar" before it opened in theaters in 2009 and went on to be the biggest box office hit of all time. But some at 20th Century Fox weren't true believers.

Cameron recalled one instance in a new profile in GQ when an executive came into his office and begged him to make the movie shorter.

The director said the executive approached him with a "stricken cancer-diagnosis expression" after seeing the movie before it opened in theaters and really felt it needed to be shortened from its 162-minute running time.

"I said something I've never said to anybody else in the business," Cameron said, before adding that he told the exec: "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. The time for you to love the movie is today."

"'So I'm not asking you to say something that you don't feel," he continued to the exec, "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 fucking 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," Cameron added. "And I told him to get the fuck out of my office. And that's where it was left."

Obviously, Cameron got the last laugh. "Avatar" did "make all the fucking money" as it became the first movie ever to gross $2 billion at the global box office, was number one at the box office for seven consecutive weeks, and eventually passed Cameron's "Titanic" to become the highest-grossing movie of all time.

But why did "Avatar" capture the imagination of the world back in 2009? Cameron admits he has no theory.

"I don't think I need a theory," he told GQ. "I think anybody that's seen the movie knows why; it's a fucking gigantic adventure that's an all-consuming emotional experience that leaves you wrung out by the end of the movie. And it was groundbreaking visually, and it still holds up today. So I don't think I need a theory."

The long-awaited sequel, "Avatar: The Way of Water," will open in theaters on December 16 and the filmmaker said it will have to be another box office Goliath to be successful.

He told GQ the movie will have to be "third or fourth highest-grossing film in history" to "break even."