New Delhi
There are barely any films that come anywhere close to James Cameron’s Titanic in the genre of romantic drama – not in its scale nor the budget. We do have films now that are made at humongous budgets but at the time when Cameron decided to create the world of Titanic, there was nothing even close in comparison. The most expensive film of its time and even now (when adjusted for inflation), James Cameron was sceptical that the film would be able to earn even a fraction of the budget allocated to make it.
James Cameron had to cut corners for most expensive film of its time, Titanic
As his film gets set for its 4K remastering home video release, Cameron reflected on how the entire team cut corners to keep the budget of the film in check. The complex engineering and resources needed to create the large sets and sequences contributed to the high cost of making the film.
“The scale of everything was beyond anything we could imagine in terms of our prior experience. At the time we thought, wow, there’s no way this movie could ever make its money back. It’s just impossible. Well, guess what?” Cameron said.
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While it was still enormous, James Cameron admitted that they tried all ways to keep the budget under control. He and producer Jon Landau said they saved $750,000 by scrapping an entire set that was planned to be canted at a three-degree angle. Instead, they stuck to two other sets — one for pre-iceberg scenes and the second one tilted at six degrees, replicating the ship sinking.
They also made the set look enormous by casting right. “We only cast short extras so it made our set look bigger. Anybody above five foot eight, we didn’t cast them. It’s like we got an extra million dollars of value out of casting,” said Cameron.
Titanic released in 1997
Titanic premiered in theaters on December 19, 1997. It became the highest-grossing film of all time until Cameron beat his record in 2009 with Avatar.
Meanwhile, the two-disc Titanic 25th anniversary 4K Blu-ray and limited edition box set is now available in stores in the US.