10 Things About Titanic You Never Knew

As it was being made, Titanic was the most expensive movie ever produced. It wound up tied with Ben Hur and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King for most Academy Awards won by a single motion picture and for years it was the biggest grossing movie of all time; until its director made his next movie: Avatar. Here we look at 10 things you never knew about Titanic.

Kate Winslet beat several A-Listers for the role.

When casting the all-important role of Rose, James Cameron considered a number of A-list actresses before sealing the deal with Kate Winslet. Others up for the part included Nicole Kidman, Jodie Foster, Cameron Diaz, Sharon Stone, and Madonna.

It could have been Kate and Matthew.

Hearts are still aflutter around the world for Jack and Rose, a romantic duo owing as much to the writing and directing as it does to the clear chemistry between Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio. But in a 2017 interview with Stephen Colbert, as Titanic celebrated its twentieth anniversary, Winslet revealed for the first time anywhere that she’d actually auditioned with Matthew McConaughey.”Isn’t that weird?”

Robert DeNiro had to pass because of gas.

Ok, please pardon the bad pun. But it’s true: DeNiro had to say no to the part of Captain Smith, as he was suffering from a gastrointestinal infection. Bummer, Bob!

James Cameron’s hands were all over the movie.

Cameron was long fascinated with shipwrecks and considered the RMS Titanic “the Mount Everest of shipwrecks.” His loving obsession with the material is the stuff of legend. In addition to writing and directing the movie, his hands are literally in it, too, as Jack’s notebook sketches were drawn by James Cameron.