James Cameron

This was just us, you know, a nascent producer and a nascent director.

I said, you will never make this movie without me as a director, and I will never make this movie without you.

as the producer.

And man, they tried to split that team.

They tried to get her in the rights and get another director.

And there were times when Gail was beating them up so much on the budget, they took me aside and said, look, we'll make the movie with you, but we got to get rid of her.

And I'm like, nope, that ain't going to happen.

And she said, nope, that ain't going to happen.

So in a way, everything else flowed from that first film.

And so that was a dollar well spent.

The simple answer is you don't deserve anything.

It's just a question of what you can negotiate for yourself and what you can prove to the world that you're capable of, right?

And then the money will flow from that and all of those things will flow from that.

I never was in it for the money.

In a sense, I'm still not.

It's a consequence of doing the job well and reaching people and communicating and

I am a commercial filmmaker.

I don't try to do something that's intentionally obscure or intentionally so kind of intellectual that it doesn't connect for the majority of the audience.

I'm a bell curve guy.

It's like I want to hit that sweet spot in the middle of the bell curve where I'm communicating with the greatest number of people.