James Cameron reveals interesting detail about casting for “Titanic”

Director James Cameron is still being asked about “Titanic,” even though the movie has been out for 26 years and he’s made even bigger blockbusters since, rolling out “Avatar” in 2009 and “Avatar: The Way of Water” in 2022, both of which re-sank that boat when it came to ticket sales. That being said, fans of his 1997 romantic disaster film — which cemented Leonardo DiCaprio as a leading man and catapulted Kate Winslet into stardom — hold it as a nostalgic treasure and delight in learning new trivia about it, which Cameron is called upon to dole out whenever an opportunity surfaces. 

In a recent interview with Los Angeles Times pegged to the release of a new 4K Ultra HD edition of “Titanic,” Cameron reveals an interesting tidbit about why they sought out a certain demographic of extras for the film and how the choosing of those extras saved them from going even more over budget than they did.

“We only cast short extras so it made our set look bigger,” says Cameron. “Anybody above 5’8”, we didn’t cast them. It’s like we got an extra million dollars of value out of casting.”

Elsewhere in the 5 hours of bonus features included in the new edition, Cameron visits a hypothermia lab in New Zealand with a team of scientists and two stunt performers to put an end to the long-asked question of whether or not Jack could have really fit on that floating door.

“I was tired of people banging on year after year,” says Cameron, with The Times pointing out that he and his team put Jack and Rose through every conceivable scenario in freezing temperatures to see if they both could have survived. “The funny thing is, people are still arguing about this 25 years later,” he furthers. “I guess that’s a good problem to have.”