James Cameron responds to ‘offensive rumours’ about directing OceanGate’s Titan submersible film

Filmmaker James Cameron has reacted to rumours that he is in talks to helm a film about OceanGate’s Titan submersible tragedy. The accident, which took place last month, killed five people on their voyage to the Titanic wreck site. The submersible imploded on June 18 near the wreckage of the vessel, killing everyone on board. (Also Read | Internet furious at Netflix for re-releasing Titanic after submersible Titan tragedy. Here’s what we know)

James on making a film based on OceanGate

James directed the Oscar-winning 1997 disaster drama Titanic based on the sinking of the titular ship. Taking to Twitter on Saturday, James wrote, “I don’t respond to offensive rumours in the media usually, but I need to now. I’m NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be.”

Fans react to James’s statement

Reacting to his post, a person said, “People saying he’s making a movie of this latest tragedy over the Titanic. He broke protocol to deny it.” A tweet read, “Much respect!” A Twitter user wrote, “If you won’t, someone else will. And it’s probably gonna be worse.” “You’re one of my favourite directors James Cameron, I would never expect you to make a movie of OceanGate, thank you for the clarification,” said another person.

James had spoken about the Titan tragedy

In June, James reacted to the Titan tragedy in an interview with ABC News, “Many people in the (deep-submergence engineering) community were very concerned about this sub, and a number of you know of the top players in the community even wrote letters to the company, saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and needed to be certified and so on. 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 people died as a result.”

About Titan

Titan, owned by OceanGate Expeditions, had been chronicling the Titanic’s decay and the underwater ecosystem around it via yearly voyages since 2021. Last month, the US Coast Guard said debris found during the search for Titan. OceanGate Expeditions CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet were killed in the implosion.