Titanic sails into theaters
On this day in 1997 director James Camerons epic drama Titanic the story of the real-life luxury ocean liner that struck an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage in 1912 resulting in the deaths of more than 1500 passengers and crew opens in theaters it will go on to become the highest-grossing movie in history.Titanic catapulted its young stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet to international fame and won 11 Academy Awards including Best Picture Best Director and Best Music (for the song My Heart Will Go On sung by Celine Dion).The film also immortalized the line Im the king of the worldwhich Cameron famously repeated during the Oscar ceremony as he picked up his gold statuette for Best Director.Titanic centers around a love story between Rose (Winslet) the reluctant bride-to-be of a rich snob and Jack (DiCaprio) a working-class adventurer and artist.
Although Rose and Jack are fictional the main events and details of film are largely historically accurate and some of the characters in Titanic are based on real peopleincluding the American millionaire John Jacob Astor and new-money socialite Molly Brownwho were onboard the supership on the night of April 14 1912 when it went down in the frigid waters of the North Atlantic.James Cameron who also penned the Titanic screenplay reportedly spent months researching the story of the luxury liner.In 1995 he hired two Russian submersibles and conducted a series of dives to shoot interior and exterior footage at the Titanic wreckage site located off the coast of Nova Scotia.Much of Titanic was shot at a studio custom-built for Cameron near Rosarito Beach in Baja California Mexico.
A 770-foot replica of the Titanic was constructed and held in a 17 million-gallon tank.Manufacturers involved in producing supplies and furnishings for the original Titanic were reportedly consulted during construction of the replica which was almost as large as the actual 10-story 882-foot supership.Camerons quest to tell the story accurately was a massive undertaking and the project reportedly cost over 200 million making it one of the most expensive in movie history.Cameron born on August 16 1954 had his first major hit as the writer and director of 1984s The Terminator the movie that turned star Arnold Schwarzenegger into a household name.
The famously temperamental Cameron went on to helm such hits as Aliens (1986) The Abyss (1989) Terminator 2 Judgment Day (1992) True Lies (1994) and Avatar (2009).DiCaprio who was born on November 11 1974 began his acting career as a teen appearing on TVs Growing Pains and going on to co-star in such films as This Boys Life (1993) with Robert De Niro Whats Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) for which he received a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination and Romeo Juliet (1996) with Claire Danes.Following Titanic DiCaprio collaborated with director Martin Scorsese on Gangs of New York (2002) The Aviator (2004) which earned DiCaprio a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his performance as Howard Hughes and The Departed (2006).Among DiCaprios other movies are director Steven Spielbergs Catch Me if You Can (2002) and Blood Diamond (2006) for which he received a second Best Actor Oscar nomination.Winslet born on October 5 1975 in Reading England made her big-screen debut in 1994s Heavenly Creatures and earned a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination for 1995s Sense and Sensibility.
She went on to receive Oscar nominations for Titanic 2001s Iris 2004s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind 2006s Little Children and 2008s The Reader for which she won an Oscar for Best Actress.
