how “Titanic” became the highest-grossing film of its time – Kultura – Kommersant

Producers and the press predicted James Cameron’s Titanic the fate of the ship of the same name. Despite this, the film grossed a record $1.8 billion at the box office.

“I have no right to cheat in anything”

Director James Cameron thought about making a massive movie about the famous disaster ten years before its premiere after watching a documentary about the Titanic on National Geographic TV. In 1994, Cameron, already famous as the director of The Terminator, wrote the script for the future tape and offered it to 20th Century Fox, describing it as “Romeo and Juliet on the Titanic.”

The producers had doubts about the success of a trivial love story superimposed on a historical event. However, the film company, which was planning a long-term relationship with Cameron, gave the green light. The director received $3 million for start-up expenses.

Production began in 1995 with 12 underwater expeditions to the wreck, in which Cameron was personally involved. Filming was carried out with the help of Russian submersibles “Mir-1” and “Mir-2”. They were based on the research vessel “Akademik Mstislav Keldysh”, later also involved in the film. A special system of underwater cameras was developed to film the exterior and interior of the wreck.

The hydronaut Yevgeny Chernyaev, who worked with Cameron, noted the director’s uncompromising approach: “If there was no equipment, then he paid Sony. He wanted stereo shooting – to put two cameras in one box, and he had to make them twice as thin. He asked Sony. They said we can do it, but for this we need to pay not $250,000 for each camera, but $1 million. He said: “Yes, I’m ready to pay!”

Subsequently, Cameron often recalled the underwater exploration of the liner: “After I saw the wreckage of the real Titanic, it became clear to me that I had no right to cheat in anything. When the Russians and I finished underwater filming, I asked everyone to gather on deck … People were extremely exhausted, but everyone gathered on the bow of the liner, and we launched a wreath on which they wrote: “In memory of the passengers and crew of the Titanic.” Our film is a cinematic wreath for these people.”

“The Scariest Man in Hollywood”

Back in the US, Cameron showed the footage to producers and began principal photography in September 1996. The film’s initial budget was $110 million.

A special studio was built on the Mexican coast, where a model of an almost life-size liner (231 m) was built in the waters of a huge pool. The drawings were provided by Harland and Wolff, the same shipyard that launched the Titanic in 1912. In total, four copies of the ship were created for filming, the smallest one was 7 m long.

In order to save money, the nose of the liner was not built – it was completed using computer graphics. The film’s most famous scene, starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, was filmed in a studio.

For Cameron, maximum historical authenticity was important: almost all the scenery and interior – from chandeliers to cutlery – were recreated according to archival sketches of the companies involved in creating the entourage of the original liner.

“I was in seventh heaven when I first walked on my Titanic and felt like a time traveler,” the director recalled.

On the set, he gained a reputation as “an uncompromising perfectionist” and “the scariest man in Hollywood”: Cameron was involved in all stages of production – from casting to choosing the original soundtrack. It is known that Matthew McConaughey, Tom Cruise and Jared Leto auditioned for the role of Jack Dawson.

To create special effects, the director invited 17 studios, led by his own – Digital Domain. Shooting crowd scenes, including the crash, became possible thanks to the latest technology of “motion capture” gaining popularity at that time.

“We kept only on faith in our picture”

At some point, the costs of producing such a large-scale project began to rise, and Cameron had to forego his fee in order to complete the film. The final budget of $200 million was a record for that time.

The painting cost several times more than all the 1997 Oscar nominees and more than the original 1912 liner itself was built. In modern terms, the construction of the Titanic cost $ 112 million.

Paramount producer (a company that agreed to share the cost with 20th Century Fox) Sherry Lansing said that Cameron was called a madman who demanded the impossible at the time: realistic costumes and interiors with believable computer graphics reproduced on screen in detail.

The producers’ panic about the film’s unprofitability was fueled by the absence of superstars in the cast (world fame came to Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet after Titanic) and a happy ending. The impossibility of creating a sequel and the more than three-hour duration of the tape also looked risky.

In addition, the film could not be prepared for the July 1997 release date. Its world premiere took place only in December.

Cameron called the completion of filming and preparation for distribution the most unpleasant memories in all film production: “It seemed to me then that everyone was ganging up against us. The press called us the greatest idiots in Hollywood history and predicted us a catastrophic failure. We kept only on faith in our picture.

“Status of a cultural icon”

Despite all the fears and comparisons of the fate of Cameron’s Titanic with the fate of the ship of the same name, the film became a hit. At a cost of $ 200 million, he brought in three times more in the US alone, returning the fashion to high-budget film projects. With an initial box office of $ 1.84 billion, the picture was the absolute record holder in the box office, until another Cameron film Avatar broke its record in 2009 with a box office of $ 1.96 billion.

Critics and the press ranked Titanic on a par with the Hollywood classic Gone with the Wind (1939), arguing that nothing more significant had been filmed in the last 50 years. The components of success were called the synthesis of the technical side of the film and the chemistry of the acting duet DiCaprio and Winslet.

The director himself said: “Ultimately, our film is not about an ocean liner, not about rich and poor, not about Europe and America, but about youth and hope, about love and death, about relationships between people and about the meaning that we put into our lives. These questions concern all people, regardless of their nationality, language, culture and age. I think that’s why audiences around the world enjoyed watching Titanic so much.”

Commenting on the film’s success, Paramount Pictures Vice Chairman Robert Friedman told The New York Times, “There are those rare films that end up being special events. When people start asking each other, “Have you seen him yet?”, he acquires the status of a cultural icon. I think that’s what’s happening with the Titanic.”

In Russia, the premiere took place two months later than the world premiere, primarily in Kaliningrad, on board the research vessel Akademik Mstislav Keldysh with the participation of the director himself. As Kommersant wrote in the days of the release of the film, “both Titanic are the most grandiose works of human hands in their genres. “Ship of Dreams” – the largest human-made moving objects, Cameron’s film – the most expensive of Hollywood films. “Titanic” of the twelfth year is the crown of technical thought of the beginning of the century, “Titanic” of the ninety-seventh is the most technologically advanced film of the end of the millennium.

“I am the king of the world!”

The film was nominated for an Oscar in 14 nominations, winning 11 of them, including the Best Picture award, and becoming the record holder for the number of Oscars along with such films as Ben-Hur (1959) and The Lord Rings: The Return of the King (2003). “Kommersant” noted that “in the depths of his soul, no one doubted that it was Cameron who would carry handfuls of gilded figurines and victoriously quote his untimely drowned hero: “I am the king of the world!”.

In 2012, the year of the 100th anniversary of the disaster and the 15th anniversary of the release of the film, the film was re-premiered in 3D and IMAX 3D. The film now grosses $2.2 billion at the box office, making it the third highest-grossing film in history behind Avengers: Endgame (2019, $2.7 billion) and Avatar (2009, $2.9 billion).

Andrey Egupets