The Sun reported that an “insider” explained that Cameron, who has been on 30 Titanic dives himself, is the “first choice for director” to create a film on the OceanGate Expedition submersible.
“He told the story of the Titanic so compassionately it feels like a natural step for him to take this on. Retracing the steps of those on board the Titan is a massive undertaking but there would be a lot of time, money and resources dedicated to it,” the insider said.
The award-winning director vehemently denies this rumour, taking to Twitter to shut it down.
“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,” he tweeted.
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.
— James Cameron (@JimCameron) July 15, 2023
Many turned to Cameron while emergency services were looking for the OceanGate Expeditions Titan submersible, giving many interviews to news outlets.
Cameron told America’s ABC News that the Titan submersible was “critically flawed” and it was only a matter of time before a disaster occurred.
He explained that OceanGate Expeditions tried to “apply aviation thinking to a deep submergence engineering problem” and that was a “flawed idea.”
“They didn’t go through certification. It wasn’t peer-reviewed by other engineering entities, by any of these what they call classing bureaus that do certification for vessels and submersibles and things like that,” he said.
“Apparently there’s an engineer that walked off the project because he didn’t believe in it. And a number of people in the greater deep submergence engineering community, including people that I’m very close with, warned the company this could lead to catastrophic failure. And that’s exactly what happened.
“The way composite, carbon fibre materials fail at pressure, they fail over time. Each dive adds more and more microscopic damage. So yes, they operated the sub safely to Titanic last year and the year before, but it was only a matter of time before it caught up with them.”
It was later confirmed that the sub was destroyed as a result of a “catastrophic implosion”, which likely occurred two hours into the descent, coinciding with the loss of communications from the vessel.
On board the vessel was British billionaire Hamish Harding, father and son duo Shahzada and Suleman Dawood, ex-Navy Paul-Henri Nargeolet and the founder of the company, Stockton Rush.
