Titanic

By sanjayparekh@13

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James Cameron is the director, writer, producer, and co-editor of Titanic, an American romantic catastrophe movie from 1997. Based on stories of the RMS Titanic disaster in 1912, it combines elements of fiction and history. Starring as members of various social groups who fall in love on the ship’s maiden voyage are Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Frances Fisher, Gloria Stuart, Bernard Hill, Jonathan Hyde, Victor Garber, David Warner, Suzy Amis, and Bill Paxton are among the ensemble cast members that appear in the movie as well.

Cameron’s obsession with shipwrecks served as the basis for the movie. He believed that in order to portray the emotional impact of the calamity, a love story interwoven with human grief would be necessary. Cameron started filming the Titanic wreck on September 1, 1995, marking the start of production. Cameron had used the Akademik Mstislav Keldysh as a base when filming the wreck, and this was where the scenes set in the present day on the research vessel were shot. The Titanic sinking was recreated using scale models, computer-generated graphics, and a recreation constructed at Baja Studios. Both Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox contributed to the film’s co-financing; Paramount handled domestic distribution while 20th Century Fox handled worldwide distribution.

At the time, Titanic had the highest production budget of any movie ever, coming in at $200 million. The period of filming was July 1996–March 1997.

The movie Titanic debuted on December 19, 1997. It received accolades for its story, emotional depth, director, score, cinematography, production values, visual effects, and performances—especially DiCaprio, Winslet, and Stuart. It tied Ben-Hur (1959) for the most Academy Awards won by a movie when it won 11 of the 14 Oscars it was nominated for, including Best Picture and Best Director. Titanic was the first movie to break the $1.84 billion mark globally with its first-ever box office haul. It remained the highest-grossing movie of all time until 2010 when James Cameron’s follow-up picture, Avatar (2009), eclipsed it.

Over $3.2 billion was made from the original theatrical release, retail video and album sales, and the US broadcast rights. The movie’s global theatrical total has reached $2.264 billion thanks to several rereleases, making it the second highest-grossing movie after Avatar. The United States National Film Registry chose it for preservation in 2017 because it was deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” by the Library of Congress.