The real reason James Cameron wanted to make ‘Titanic’

James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic took the world by storm. Merging the thrilling natural disaster genre with a tragic love story, it had cinema-goers weeping across the globe. While some people found the movie too long – an impressive runtime of three hours and 14 minutes – the general consensus was highly praising of the work.

In fact, Titanic really was a feat of cinema due to its sheer scope. The set design was more than astounding, with Cameron and his crew going to extensive lengths to make the massive cruiseliner look as realistic and true to life as possible. There were thousands of extras who lined the ship, with many carefully choreographed stunts depicting people falling from rafters, drowning in the ocean or fighting for their lives as they waded through corridors increasingly flooding with water.

The fictional romance between Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jack and Kate Winslet’s Rose, doomed lovers from opposite ends of the social ladder, tied the tragedy together, giving audiences a specific relationship in which to invest. The movie spawned many iconic lines and scenes, from Jack painting Rose nude to her inevitably letting go of her new lover into the icy Atlantic.

Cameron’s project won 11 Oscars, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Visual Effects’, becoming one of the most commercially and critically successful movies of all time. However, the real reason behind Cameron making it stemmed from a personal fascination with the shipwreck. He knew that by using his position as an acclaimed filmmaker to his advantage, he would be able to achieve his dreams of visiting the real Titanic at the bottom of the ocean himself.

In an interview with Playboy, Cameron explained, “I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to make the movie.” Thus, in 1995, he made his first trip to visit the wreckage in order to capture footage for the film and to immerse himself in the real Titanic. The director returned several times while making the project, fulfilling his childhood fantasy of actually seeing the debris for himself.

He added, “The Titanic was the Mount Everest of shipwrecks, and as a diver, I wanted to do it right. When I learned some other guys had dived to the Titanic to make an IMAX movie, I said, ‘I’ll make a Hollywood movie to pay for an expedition and do the same thing.’ I loved that first taste, and I wanted more.”

Since 1995, Cameron has been to see the real Titanic 33 times – clearly, his interest paid off. He made one of the most profitable movies of all time, helping to establish him as a Hollywood icon.