James Cameron

The only successful film previously that had been three hours long that was a commercial film was a Best Picture winner, which was Dances with Wolves.

Mm-hmm.

I always pronounce it Dances with Wolves because it was a name.

So I always imagine it hyphenated, not Dances with Wolves, which is what most people say.

But I don't know if that's accurate.

I never asked anybody, but it probably is.

And so we were in uncharted territory.

I mean, we...

went in knowing it was going to be a long film and that it's a tragic film and that it's a tragic love story, pretty risky in a sense.

It certainly didn't follow any of the commercial paradigms of the time.

And we reached a point after we went over budget, even though the film was looking pretty good in the dailies and in the rough cuts,

We reached a point where the studio was utterly convinced it was only a question of whether they were going to lose $50 million or $150 million.

And they were so dead set on an outcome, they almost manifested the outcome they dreaded because of their lack of faith in the film.

I even almost, in a way, lost faith in the film being commercial.

But I never lost faith in it being artistically correct.

And that's when I – the story's been told, but it's actually true.

I literally had a razor blade taped to my Avid screen with a little sign that said, use in case film sucks.

Wow.

Because I knew that the only way out of this was through, and the only way through was to make the best possible movie you could make.

Even if I didn't make a dime off it, even if it failed commercially, it had to be good.