The real story about how Titanic got made wasn’t the crazy part, it was the journey that it took to finish it and make it turn a profit. The idea behind making it had to do with James Cameron’s personal interest in the real Titanic and how he could spin it into a story that might be given epic proportions that people would love and hopefully flock to. He initially asked for $2 million from 20th Century Fox to conduct an expedition to the real Titanic so that he could get a good look at the old derelict and begin to formalize an idea of what direction he wanted the film to go in. He’d already pitched the idea, but the studio wanted to know that they could reign in the budget without having to make too many allowances for what could be a spendy chick flick.
Obviously they were keeping their hopes a little too high. Eventually Cameron would drive the budget up to $200 million, which was an expense that the studio had not planned on and did not fully support at first. He had to build an open-air tank that would be big enough to film in, and turned out being the biggest ever constructed. It could hold up to 17 million gallons and was where he filmed a great deal of the movie.
Aside from that was the fact that once people saw it, the low expectations that were held for it were eventually dispelled as couples and individuals kept going back again and again to view the movie multiple times despite knowing just how it was going to go. Something about the film managed to entrance so many people that for the months and months it stayed in the theater people flocked to the show, sometimes going for double features and sometimes going for the fourth or fifth time if not more. I love a good movie but going this many times seems a bit strange, especially when after about the third time you’ve likely seen just about all there is to see.
Yet the music, the story, and the overall experience continued to draw people in as the film was quickly spread across the media and became an integral part of many people’s lives. I can even recall a favorite comic strip called Foxtrot that was fairly popular a while back when they decided to pick up on the Titanic theme. The mother went to see the movie so often that her husband and three kids had to fend for themselves for weeks. I’m hoping that it didn’t get this bad in real life but some people get so obsessed with their favorite movies that it’s entirely possible.
The odd thing about Titanic is that going in people knew how it was going to end. The ship wasn’t going to miraculously stay afloat just long enough for anyone to come and rescue every passenger and crewman. History’s told us that the RMS Titanic sank, so this really became a love story that managed to earn $1 billion dollars throughout it’s longer than usual run.
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