One of James Cameron's highest-grossing films, Titanic, was filmed in 1996 with an initial budget of just $ 110 million. However, the film became a blockbuster, revisited by the audience several times.
The idea of filming "Titanic" has been visited by director James Cameron since 1987, when he first got acquainted with the story of the shipwreck. In 1995, he made 12 dives to the Titanic itself to look at the ship as well as plan the entire underwater survey. In 1996, there were few underwater cameras, the film of the one on which the Titanic was filmed was enough for 15 minutes, and, although some scenes were filmed underwater, for filming a new film studio had to be built with scenery and its own reservoir.
Filming location
Initially, the director and producers intended to shoot the film in Malta, but the sponsors were sorry to leave all the sets in a foreign country. Filmed "Titanic" not far from the United States, 40 km south of the border between Mexico and the United States. Here the huge world of the Atlantic Ocean was created: a ship in a deep basin. In fact, the Atlantic found Rosarito on the coast. A huge Titanic was built there, which turned out to be 231 meters long, which is only 38 meters less than the original. A lot of the details were well drawn and were remarkably similar to the real ones. Instead of helicopters, which were supposed to shoot the deck from above, a high crane was installed with rails along which the camera moved.
For the first time in film production, so many special effects were used: instead of filming in cold water, the actors were filmed in water at room temperature, and then steam from their mouths was applied to the picture. Dolphins diving in front of the ship were also created on computers. What can we say about the largest installation project in 1996 - the wreck of the Titanic. In order to select a company that was engaged in the reconstruction of the ship's sinking, a tender was held among 17 world companies. The winner is Digital Domain, the best of its kind. For filming, a huge iceberg was created, which the ship collided with.
Movie premiere
The film turned out to be quite long: 216 minutes, for showing in cinemas it was slightly shortened, to 194 minutes. Many were afraid that the film might fail because of the duration, but none of the viewers of the premiere left the session ahead of time, and it seemed to no one that the film lasted more than three hours. The amazing beautiful story of love and tragedy of the world legend captured the audience.
The picture brought its creators more than 1 billion 300 million dollars, it remained the highest grossing in the history of cinema for 12 long years. Only James Cameron himself, who shot "Avatar", was able to break his own record. For the centenary of the sinking of the Titanic, the film was shown in theaters again, but now in 3D. Although he brought in $ 300 million, he could not break the new Avatar record.
