Top 15 Things You Didn’t Know About The Movie “Titanic”

1. The studio wanted Tom Cruise to play the role of Jack Dawson.

 20th Century Fox wanted both Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise for the lead, but James Cameron insisted on Leo DiCaprio.

2. Jack and Rose’s spitting scene was almost entirely ad-libbed, as was the moment when Kate Winslet spat in Billy Zane’s face.

 

Rather than spitting on Billy Zane’s face, Kate Winslet’s character was supposed to stick him with a hairpin.

3. After writing the fictitious character of Jack Dawson, James Cameron learned that there was a real J. Dawson who died on the Titanic.

 

Joseph Dawson, along with many other Titanic victims, was buried in a cemetery in Nova Scotia. His gravestone is apparently the most visited in the cemetery.

4. This is the second film that features the sinking of the Titanic to win the Best Picture Oscar.

 

The first was 1933’s Cavalcade.

5. The elderly couple who lay in bed as water flooded the room, is a tribute to Ida and Isidor Strauss, the owners of the Macy’s department store who died on the Titanic.

 

Ida was offered a seat on a lifeboat but turned it down because she wanted to stay with her husband. She is quoted as saying: “As we have lived together, so we shall die together.”

6. Kate Winslet was one of the only people who didn’t wear a wetsuit while filming.

  She got pneumonia and almost quit the production.

7. It cost more money to make the movie Titanic than it did to actually construct the original ship.

 Movie’s cost: $200 million.

Ship’s cost: $7.5 million ($150 million when adjusted for inflation).

8. The final dress Kate Winslet wore in the movie is made to look as good wet as it did when dry.

Also, costume designer Deborah Lynn Scott made 24 identical versions of the dress.

9. The line “I’m the king of the world!” was ad-libbed.

  And it’s considered among AFI’s 100 greatest movie quotes of all time.

10. During the final scene of the movie where Rose met Jack at the Grand Staircase, the clock read 2:20 a.m., which is the exact time the Titanic sank.

  11. Madonna was considered for the role of Rose.

12. Gloria Stuart was the only person who worked on the production of the film who was actually alive during the Titanic’s maiden voyage in 1912

  She was born on July 4, 1910.

13. Titanic was the first film to have two people nominated for an Oscar for portraying the same character.

  The second film to do so was Iris (2001).

14. Most of the ocean that the actors jump into is just a giant, 3-feet-deep pool.

15. The film was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, the most Oscar nods for any film, ever.

This ties the record set by All About Eve in 1950.