Titanic [1997] (4 discs)

Random Trivia For This Title:

• At the end of the movie, when Rose meets Jack on the Grand Staircase, the time displayed on the clock is the same time the ship sank, at 2:20 AM.
• Reba McEntire was offered and had accepted the role of Molly Brown, but due to later schedule conflicts, had to turn it down.
• ^[?] Lindsay Lohan auditioned for the role of Cora Cartmell. Lohan, who was then an unknown and was only 8 years old at the time casting took place, was the top choice for the role. However, James Cameron felt that Lohan's fiery red hair would confuse people into thinking she was related to the characters Rose and Ruth, who both had fiery red hair. ^[?] Alexandrea Owens was cast instead.
• James Cameron instructed the actors playing the officers to keep order amongst the extras in the sinking scenes. ^[?] Jonny Phillips ad-libbed the moment when he whips around with the gun and shouts "keep back, or I'll shoot you all like dogs!" After the take, James Cameron ran up to him and told him it was great and to do it again, and Phillips asked "What did I say?", having been too caught up in the moment to realize what he was doing.
• Christian Bale auditioned for the role of Jack Dawson, but was turned down because James Cameron didn't want two British actors playing the lead roles of two Americans.
• Rose, in her old age, owns a Pomeranian. A Pomeranian was one of only three dogs known to have survived the disaster. As the real ship sank, a passenger freed dogs from their kennels.
• Johnny Depp was offered the role of Jack Dawson, but turned it down, and considers it a big regret.
• A recent investigation showed that if Titanic had hit the iceberg head-on, she would have survived. Though damaged she would not have sunk and would have reached New York -- maybe a day or two late.
• The studios wanted Matthew McConaughey to play Jack, but James Cameron insisted on Leonardo DiCaprio. McConaughey and DiCaprio went on to co-star in The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).
• Fay Wray was originally offered the role of the older Rose but turned it down, saying, "I think to have done this film would have been a tortuous experience altogether". Hollywood legend Ann Rutherford also turned it down.
• Most of the stuntmen in the engine room scenes were only about 5 feet tall to make the engine room look a lot bigger.
• James Cameron was adamant about not including any song in the film, even over the closing credits. Composer James Horner secretly arranged with lyricist ^[?] Will Jennings and singer Céline Dion to write "My Heart Will Go On" and record a demo tape which he then presented to Cameron, who responded very favorably and included the song over the closing credits. The song went on to win the Academy Award for Best Original Song.
• Due to the long theatrical run of the movie, Paramount had to send out replacement reels to theaters that had literally worn out their copies.
• The scene where Cal and Rose have a coffee and the scene where Cal has a tantrum and flips a table were ad-libbed by Billy Zane, therefore, Kate Winslet's reactions were natural.
• Reportedly, James Cameron spoke to and personally provided each of the extras (at least 150 of them) with names and back stories of Titanic passengers.
• When Jack is preparing to draw Rose, he says to her, "Over on the bed...the couch." The line was scripted "Lie on that couch", but Leonardo DiCaprio made an honest mistake and James Cameron liked it so much he kept it in.
• As originally scripted, Cal was intended to actually find Rose aboard the Carpathia after the sinking. Rose was to tell him to let her mother know that she died on the Titanic, and that he would leave her alone for the rest of her life.
• The piece of wooden paneling that Rose floated on after the sinking is based upon a genuine artifact that survived the sinking and is on display at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, though it was scaled larger to provide sufficient buoyancy as a life-raft for Rose.
• Robert De Niro was offered the role of Captain Smith but turned it down due to a gastrointestinal infection at the time.
• Rose's chiffon dress which she wears for the latter part of the film was designed to look just as good wet as dry. Costume designer ^[?] Deborah Lynn Scott had about 24 of them made.
• Kate Winslet has no aversion to nudity so she performed her nude scene without the use of a body double.
• Steven Spielberg was so impressed with the film's 3D conversion, that he hired the same retrofitting company to do the same for Jurassic Park (1993)'s 3D conversion.
• The hands seen sketching Rose are not Leonardo DiCaprio's, but director James Cameron's. In post-production, Cameron, who is left-handed, mirror-imaged the sketching shots so the artist would appear to be right-handed, like DiCaprio.
• James Cameron's regular Michael Biehn was nearly cast as Cal Hockley and attended numerous meetings with Cameron to discuss the role. Pierce Brosnan, Rupert Everett, Peter Greene, William Hurt, Jason Isaacs, Rob Lowe, Matthew McConaughey, ^[?] Adrian Pauland Rufus Sewell were also considered, though ultimately the part went to Billy Zane.
• River Phoenix was James Cameron's first choice to play Jack Dawson. By the time the movie was made, River Phoenix had died and Leonardo DiCaprio had reached the perfect age. Ironically when Johnny Depp was offered the role of Jack, he turned it down.
• When Jack prevents Rose from committing suicide, he shares a story about how he once fell into freezing cold water while ice fishing and how "it hits you like a thousand knives stabbing you all over your body." This was an actual quote from a Titanic survivor describing the temperature of the North Atlantic water.
• After finding out that she had to be naked in front of Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet decided to break the ice, and when they first met, she flashed him.