James Cameron recently responded to a rumor concerning him and the Titan submersible tragedy reported by several U.K. publications. It was reported by The Sun that the Titanic director was in talks with a major streamer about developing a movie or series about the ill-fated final Titan voyage, in which five people died.”I don’t respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now,” Cameron wrote on Twitter. “I’m NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be.” In the original story, a source claimed, “The Titan disaster is already being looked at as a major series for one of the world’s biggest streamers — and James is the first choice for director. It is a subject close to his heart. He told the story of the Titanic so compassionately it feels like a natural step for him to take this on. Retracing the steps of those on board the Titan is a massive undertaking, but there would be a lot of time, money and resources dedicated to it.” According to the article, Cameron was attempting to recruit actors such as Matt Damon and Kumail Nanjiani for the project. Cameron, an expert in deep-sea submersibles, gave several interviews after the accident to explain what went wrong from a technical perspective.
Cameron told ABC News, “Many people in the community were concerned about this sub and even wrote letters to the company saying that what they were doing was too experimental and what they were doing needed to be certified.” He added, “I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet, he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many died as a result. It’s a very similar tragedy at the exact same site. It’s astonishing and really quite surreal.” Having designed submersibles himself, Cameron said he understands the challenges of building such a craft safely and successfully while defending the practice of deep-sea diving. “It’s absolutely critical for people to get the take-home message that deep submersible diving is a mature art,” Cameron said. “The safety record is the gold standard, absolutely, not only fatalities but no accidents. … Of course [what happened to the Titan is] the nightmare that we’ve all lived with, we’ve lived with it in the back of our minds.”
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In Cameron’s 1997 box office hit Titanic, footage of the actual wreck site and submersible explorations of the ship were heavily featured. According to the U.S. Coast Guard, the missing sub went down while on a dive near the wreckage site, and all those aboard were killed instantly as a result of the sub imploding. Search-and-rescue teams found Titan debris on the ocean floor, which led them to the conclusion. Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, was among those killed aboard the sub. His past interviews indicated that he had a casual attitude towards safety and used off-the-shelf, non-certified components for some aspects of his sub.
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AT SEA – (—-EDITORIAL USE ONLY â" MANDATORY CREDIT – " OCEANGATE/ HANDOUT" – NO MARKETING NO ADVERTISING CAMPAIGNS – DISTRIBUTED AS A SERVICE TO CLIENTS—-) An undated photo shows tourist submersible belongs to OceanGate begins to descent at a sea. Search and rescue operations continue by US Coast Guard in Boston after a tourist submarine bound for the Titanic's wreckage site went missing off the southeastern coast of Canada. (Photo by Ocean Gate / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
