LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: James Cameron finally broke silence on OceanGate film rumors. The 'Titanic' famed director made it very clear on his Instagram Story on Saturday, July 15, that he will not be involved in any way or form in a movie about the company behind the Titan submersible that imploded during a journey to the Titanic wreckage last month.
The US-based company has been under the scanner after it claimed the lives of all five passengers inside it on June 18 and has since deleted its website and social media handles. The website and its expedition pages now state that the company has “suspended all exploration and commercial operations”, while its social media handles have disappeared from the internet.
James Cameron addresses the rumors
"I don't respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now," the Academy Award winner wrote to his Instagram fans. "I'm NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be." The filmmaker also shared the same news on his Twitter account as well. This statement comes after the Daily Mail and The Sun reported that Cameron was allegedly approached for a series about the Titan submersible disaster.
The OceanGate tragedy
A search for the missing submersible that was traveling to the site of the Titanic wreckage ended on June 22 after its remains were discovered on the ocean floor that likely was caused by a "catastrophic implosion,” assumed to be that of Titan. Five people were aboard the Titan when it vanished and imploded on Father's Day, OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, 61, British Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood, 48, and his son Suleman Dawood, 19, British billionaire Hamish Harding, 58, and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, 77.
The US Coast Guard revealed that "presumed human remains" were recovered days later while searching through the wreckage. The supposed remains "were carefully recovered" within the wreckage, and the Marine Board of Investigation (MBI) transported them for further analysis and testing.
After OceanGate announced the death of all the passengers, Cameron told ABC News that the diving community was “deeply concerned” about the submersible’s safety even prior to the expedition. “A number of the top players in the deep submergence engineering community even wrote letters to the company, saying that what they were doing was too experimental to carry passengers and that it needed to be certified,” he said in June.
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship, and yet he steamed at full speed into an ice field on a moonless night and many people died as a result,” he said, noting that he couldn’t help but connect the circumstances to those of the Titanic, which sank back in 1912. “For us, it’s a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded,” he added. “To take place at the same 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.”
