James Cameron is one of the world’s preeminent filmmakers largely thanks to the record-smashing, awards-grabbing success of 1997’s “Titanic” — but don’t expect a deep-sea follow-up covering June’s OceanGate submersible tragedy anytime soon.
Responding to online rumors that he’s attached himself to a film project covering the so-called “Titan” submersible’s tragic undersea implosion while on a tourist expedition to view Titanic ruins on June 18 — an event that left five dead, including controversial OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush — Cameron heatedly said that there is no such project in the works. He appeared angry he had to respond to the rumors at all.
“I don’t respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now. I’m not in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be,” the director tweeted early Saturday.
In the days following the tragedy, Cameron became a prominent media presence to offer both his Titanic and oceanic expertise to what may have caused the Titan submersible to implode while en route to the Titanic.
He became vocally critical of Rush’s apparent disregard for industry protocol in the materials he was using on the submersible — a decision that may have cost him his life as well as the lives of a Pakastani businessman and his son, Shahzada and Suleman Dawood; British businessman Hamish Harding; and French diver and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, who was a personal friend and peer of Cameron.
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result,” Cameron said in a video interview on ABC News. “And for a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded, to take place at the exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world, I think it’s just astonishing, it’s really quite surreal.”
So while figures like Rush and tragedies like that of OceanGate’s Titan are often fair play in Hollywood, it’s safe to say that Cameron is staying far away from any such opportunity.
