James Cameron is firm (and offended): he has absolutely no intention of working on a film that would depict the OceanGate submersible disaster.
James Cameron today responded to rumors that he is in talks to direct a film about the ill-fated voyage of the submersible Titan which claimed the lives of its five passengers. The submarine indeed sank while trying to visit the wreck of the Titanic last month. The rumors that spoke of a film on the subject by james cameron began to appear after the director’s comments about the disaster.
After getting wind of these “offensive rumours”, he took to Twitter (via ComingSoon and Deadline) to quickly deny them, noting that not only was no movie on the subject in the works and more importantly, that he didn’t would never do anything like that.
“I don’t usually respond to offensive rumors in the media, but I need to now. I am NOT in talks about an OceanGate movie, and I never will be.”
THE STATEMENTS OF JAMES CAMERON
james cameronwho directed Titanic in 1997 – and is an accomplished diver himself – had indeed opened up about the disaster during an interview with ABC News and then warned people to be careful when trying to do anything as dangerous as deep-sea diving, while emphasizing the similarities between the Titanic disaster and the OceanGate submersible situation.
“People in the community were very concerned about this submarine“, he said. “I’m struck by the similarity to the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned of icebergs ahead of his ship, and yet he raced through an ice field one night without a moon, and many people died as a result.”
The filmmaker, who himself made 33 deep-sea dives to visit the Titanic wreck site, said it was “surreal” that a similar incident had happened at the same site after more than 100 years. “For a very similar tragedy, where the warnings went unheeded, to take place at the exact same site with all the dives taking place around the world, I think it’s just amazing. It’s really quite surreal“, he added.
His comments were then challenged by OceanGate co-founder Guillermo Söhnlein, who said it was not fair to speculate about what happened inside the ship.
OceanGate, the private shipping company behind the Titan submarine’s voyage, has since canceled all operations and no, james cameron will not make a film about the tragedy.