if you guys follow me on Instagram, you guys must know that Titanic is my favorite movie of all time.
(link to my Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/itsnehamadhukar/ )
and if you guys have read some other blogs that I've written, (https://krmadhukar.blogspot.com/2021/09/facts-about-friends-by-neha.html ) well if you haven't, I research about my favorite tv shows and movies A LOT, and I'm writing this blog because I wanna share my knowledge. and also because I know there are millions of other titanic fans, who would be interested in this topic.
if you guys haven't seen titanic (i bet most of you have) and you don't know the story. well go watch it right now, what are you waiting for! anyway, I'm still gonna explain the story a bit. 17-year-old Rose (Kate Winslet) hails from an aristocratic family and is set to be married. when she boards the Titanic, she meets Jack Dawson (Leonardo Dicaprio), an artist and she falls in love with him. titanic was released on December 17, 1997. and the movie has been a blockbuster, everyone knew titanic and everyone still does, titanic is the legendary movie which was made in the '90s and nothing like this has ever been released up until date. I love this movie so much, and I've rewatched it 202 times (yeah I keep count.) and I read the movie script 5 times. and if you guys want to know more about how I'm obsessed, check out this blog: https://krmadhukar.blogspot.com/2021/02/how-i-am-obsessed-with-titanic-by-neha.html
1. It cost more to make Titanic the movie than Titanic the ship. Cameron and the company spent $200 million to make the film in 1997, while the ship cost $7.5 million. As "time" pointed out in 2016, that number would be $180 million after adjusted inflation. and the funny thing that I just realized is that they built another titanic and filmed a movie about it and they sunk it, isn't the ship that James Cameron built for this movie the titanic 2? but well I found fact to be bizarre but it also makes sense, since the original Titanic was built 84 years before they built the "movie prop" and so, of course, it's going to be much more expensive than what was built 84 years ago, 109 years ago now. and if someone tried to build the same ship today, it would certainly be a lot more expensive than the titanic James Cameron built.
2. the underwater footages of the titanic at the beginning of the movie are footage from the real Titanic, James Cameron took. I didn't know this, but my dad did, and he explained it, the first time I watched the movie.... when I was a bit older. (the actual first time I watched titanic was when I was 8, and all of my friends and cousins have seen the movie at the age of 8 years old.) we watched it in 3D and all the beautiful stardust was just mesmerizing to our eyes. and that scene just gives you goosebumps. and the music which plays right at the beginning of the movie is so beautiful, but when you rewatch titanic, all the music and everything just hits different, at the beginning of the movie, while the song plays, you're thinking "such beautiful music" and when you're rewatching it, you're just crying. that's it. Two of Cameron's passions—filmmaking and diving—blended in his work on the movies The Abyss and Titanic. ... He has made 72 deep submersible dives, including 33 to Titanic, logging more hours on that ship than Captain Smith himself. Of these dives, 51 were in Russian Mir submersibles to depths of up to 16,000 feet. James Cameron went on 12 dives to the real Titanic himself and found it an overwhelming emotional experience to actually see the sunken ship. During his first trip, he was so goal-oriented that he managed to film the shots he wanted, but as soon as he was back on the surface, he broke down in tears after finally realizing the magnitude of the historic tragedy that he had just witnessed. He ended up spending more time with the ship than its living passengers did.
3. if all the present-day scenes (1996) were deleted leaving only those taken place in 1912, the film would run for exactly 2 hours and 40 minutes - the exact time it took for Titanic to sink. when I read this, my mind was blown. and when it said 2 hours and 40 minutes, that rang a bell and it made so much sense. these kinds of hidden meanings from directors in movies, I'm all in for. and if I were ever to be a director, I would do something like this. James Cameron is just an amazing director, he hasn't directed a lot of movies, but the ones that he does, all of his movies have been blockbusters, avatar, which is the highest-grossing movie in the current day. and the terminator, and titanic, which I'm pretty sure everyone can agree with, is the best movie that he's ever made. and I was so obsessed with this movie, that I even started listening to a podcast about it. called "James Cameron's titanic, scene by scene" and listening to this podcast made me feel amazing, as they were explaining the behind-the-scenes and how it was all done, it made me relive the movie. I truly loved and enjoyed the podcast.
4. James Cameron didn't want an actual song with lyrics in the film, not even over the closing credits (he thought it didn't fit tonally) but composer late James Horner (RIP) however, was struggling to end the movie on a strongly emotional note, so, He secretly arranged with lyricist Will Jennings and singer Céline Dion to write "My Heart Will Go On", using the central musical theme of the movie as a melody. A demo tape was recorded with most of 20th Century Fox top brass in attendance, who loved the song. Horner then presented the recording to Cameron, who responded very favorably, although he had no idea who the singer was (when told it was his fellow Canadian Celine Dion, he responded: "Oh, she's big, right?"). He included the song over the closing credits, and it went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song. and turns out Celine Dion wasn't actually interested in recording the demo version, but her late husband René Angélil and her manager convinced her to record it, she revealed it herself in the James Corden show.
5. Jennifer Aniston could have been Rose, James Cameron considered some of the most popular actresses at that time, and of course, Jennifer was one of them, Jennifer Aniston was considered the "it" girl in the '90s. because of her role in friends, of course. and I freaked out when I found out about this. friends is my favorite tv show, and it was so popular, and I know so many people think it's overrated and disgusting, but there's one thing I wanna tell those people. read this: https://krmadhukar.blogspot.com/2021/09/why-friends-is-not-overrated-by-neha.html anyway, but of course, she wasn't offered the role, she was just considered for it, and I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have turned it down if she would have but that would've been her decision, and of course she was also busy with friends (with the tv show friends and with her friends, the cast of friends) at the time. but apparently, Kate Winslet read the script and she "wept buckets" (who was 19 at the time) and she knew she would do anything to get this role, and she sent James Cameron a dozen of roses, and signed them with "from your rose" and I mean I'm also glad kate got the role, but I'm also mad at James because I know that Jen would've done an amazing job in playing rose, I know so many people cant picture her as rose, neither could I, and it's probably because everyone saw her as Rachel for 10 years, but she definitely could've pulled it off. and there are so many other a lister actors who could've starred in titanic, check out this blog if you guys wanna know! https://krmadhukar.blogspot.com/2021/05/22-actors-who-could-have-starred-in.html
6. titanic was actually filmed in a 17 million gallon tank, not a swimming pool (I've heard that so many times) James Cameron revealed that himself on the Oprah show. The post-sinking scenes were shot in a 350,000 gallon (1,300,000 L) tank where the frozen corpses were created by applying a powder on the actors that then crystallized when exposed to water. Wax was applied to hair and clothes to create a wet look. when I found out that it was filmed in a 17 million gallon tank, I was blown. 17 MILLION?! and do you guys remember the iconic scene from titanic, and didn't the sunset look beautiful, well turns that the sunset was real!
I thought that the sunset must have probably been computer-generated (CGI) or green screen, but it was real, and since it was a real sunset, they only had a couple of minutes to film the perfect shot, they'd have to wait for the next day if they messed up. Titanic was shot at Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, and Fox Baja Studios in Rosarito, Mexico. 
The set had been purposely built at a seaside location to capture natural light, and eight days of filming were available to capture the bow shot kissing scene. For obvious reasons, there were only a few minutes per day to shoot the scene, but every time, something wasn't quite right. The crew resorted to filming rehearsal shots in the hope that conditions would improve the next day. The final day had an overcast sky, so no one expected to get a better shot. But just before the day was about to end, the sky suddenly cleared. James Cameron quickly scrambled the crew together, Kate Winslet was hastily pulled out of make-up, and the scene was finished just before another cloud appeared. Due to all the haste, the shot was slightly out of focus, but Cameron nevertheless considered it the perfect sunset he had been waiting for, and this is the shot that ended up in the movie. Even though Cameron is a huge advocate for computer-generated effects, he admitted that the magic that they captured on camera that day would have been hard, if not impossible to replicate with CGI.
7. (at around 10 mins) Upon discovering the sketch of young Rose, Brock Lovett says "I'll be goddamned". These were the exact words of Dr. Robert Ballard upon his discovery of the Titanic wreck. I remember asking my dad why he said that when I watched it for the second time last year, and that's very interesting, and I love that James Cameron did that.
8. On the final night of shooting in Nova Scotia, one or more criminals mixed the dissociative hallucinogen PCP (angel dust) into the clam chowder served to the cast and crew. 80 people were taken ill, and more than 50 were taken to the hospital (87-year-old Gloria Stuart was fortunately spared because she had dined elsewhere). Initially, shellfish poisoning was suspected, but when James Cameron noticed that one crew member was demanding to see a priest, the director of photography was leading a conga line, and the assistant director was talking to Cameron over a walkie-talkie while looking straight at him (she even stabbed him in the cheek with a pen when he brought this up to her), he realized that the chowder had been spiked with hallucinogenic drugs. In absence of a purging agent, he forced himself to vomit before the drug took full effect; his bloodshot eyes afterward frightened other crew members into thinking that it was another side effect of the drug. Bill Paxton felt listless for two weeks after the incident (although PCP's primary effects only last a few hours, the drug itself can take eight or more days to completely metabolize out of the body). The culprit(s) were never caught; some disgruntled crew members who had been fired were suspected, but Cameron himself always believed that it was an ex-crew member who had had an argument with the caterer and subsequently poisoned the chowder in an attempt to get the caterer fired as well. this was something I had no idea about, but ow, that's huge.
9. Following her grueling experience on the film, which included a rigorous filming schedule as well as experiencing many hardships and bruises, Kate Winslet said, "You'd have to pay me an awful lot of money to work with James Cameron again" (apparently, her request was granted, because she has been confirmed to appear in Cameron's Avatar 2 (2022)). Leonardo DiCaprio also acknowledged it was a tough shoot, yet he stated that if he would ever do another action movie, he would want Cameron as director. but well, of course, it was a rigorous experience and I'm pretty sure he was strict because he wanted the movie to come out perfect, and it did, there is nothing wrong with titanic. everything is just perfect, and if you compare the titanic that James Cameron built, it looks identical to the real titanic. since the movie is perfect, it was the highest-grossing movie of all time.... until the end game and avatar came along, but to my surprise, avatar is still the highest-grossing movie of all time, considering that it was released 12 years ago. and I'm thrilled that Kate Winslet will be starring in titanic. but I wish Leonardo DiCaprio to also star in avatar 2. it would feel like titanic 2, which we never got, and I know that most of it was based on true events which were why there isn't a part 2, but if he did make part 2 of titanic, it would be interesting if the story was if jack lived.
10. The first Best Picture Academy Award winner to be produced, directed, written, and edited by the same person James Cameron. he was probably the first person, who's movie I've seen which has been directed, written, produced, and edited by the same person.
