Well, first of all, I'm glad we're able to, uh,
do this interview and give you a little publicity there.
Haven't
really,
because
nobody knows about this film. They haven't heard a damn thing about it.
So I'm glad we're there for nothing good so far anyway. Well, yes,
in there. Yeah.
And, well,
that's the good thing about being able to
do interviews today and the way you can clear
up some of the things that weren't so good and say we'll try to dispel the myths.
What are some of them? What are the, what are some of the ones that you say?
That's, that's totally inaccurate?
Uh, well, you know, people have been reporting the budget as much higher than it is.
The budget is, in fact, uh,
just a little under $200 million but they've
been saying it's $285 million which is ridiculous.
I don't usually,
I've never historically copped
to the budget
but it,
it's sort of bitten me because people think true lies
cost 100 and $20 million and it cost $100 million.
So I figure I might as well get the facts straight.
Um,
I don't know.
I mean, people have, have had, uh, there've been a lot of rumors about, uh,
safety on the set and the set, the set was very safe
and, you know, we have the,
we have the facts to back it up but these rumors kind of spread like wildfire.
It, it's something to do with the big, the big film syndrome, you know.
Sure.
Let's talk about the pitch. You started this with a simple pitch at 20th century Fox.
What were, what was the pitch? Little movie Boy meets Girl?
A ship sinks? But
you know,
more on that later.
So you, you pitched this as kind of a Romeo and Juliet.
But you could, you could put it that way. Uh Exactly on, on Titanic. And
you know, I had, I had this book of these beautiful paintings done by Ken Marshal
who later worked with us on the film, uh showing showing the ship in it,
in its glory and during the, during its death throes and, and
uh I, I hadn't even written it yet, but I'm saying, OK,
there's this guy and there's this girl and he's an artist and you know,
it was all up here still.
And um
and they said,
yeah,
yeah, OK, let's, let's go to the next step. So then let's write the script.
And uh when they got the script,
it was one of those things where it's like,
I really love this script and news is gonna cost a lot of money,
you know what I mean? And they were right. Was there a point where they go?
Well, could we have like, like a, like an Arnold or a Terminator coming on board and,
you know,
pulling the passengers off and going?
I'll be back because that'll, that'll really pump up the box office potential.
Well, no, you know, I mean, there was no, there,
there was no attempt to kind of crank it up or turbocharge it, you know.
Uh Peter Chernin is quite a literate guy.
Fortunately, he knows how to read a script and he appreciated the writing.
Uh So he was always a strong supporter of the film,
but it was a tough business decision to make this film,
you know,
no sequel, but it's not a sequel, you know, it doesn't have a built in audience,
uh no sequel potential, you know.
So no, no franchise value if you do have a hit.
Um, you know, you can't make a theme park attraction out of it.
You can't do a toy line out of it, you know.
So all of those other profit centers don't exist.
So it really has to stand on its own merits. It's a period movie, a period romance.
Nobody's even made that sort of film much. Certainly not on that
budget scale, you know, for a long time. So it's really a throwback.
And when I pitched it, I said this is a throwback.
This is the kind of film that hasn't been made in some time.
So let's, you know, if you don't have the courage to do that, let's not play.
Um And they did, you know, and it's a tough call,
how would this film have been different if it had to have
met its release date of July 4th or the end of July,
it would have been a good film that was a little bit longer
and not, not as well refined, not as well polished in the cutting.
Uh some musical moments might not have been quite
as powerful because the music was sort of,
you know,
it, it took a long time to, to record the music and get it just right.
Um Just, it, it would have been a good film but not the film you saw. Yeah. And,
and music is haunting. I mean, all the way home. Um,
the experience of going, I think somewhere I was quoted,
you got to go to Mecca when you got to go down to the wreckage.
What kind of impressions did you take away from that?
Well, you know, you think it's going to be one thing and it turns out to be another,
you know, I expected it to be eerie and haunting and spooky and, and,
and evocative and all that sort of thing.
But what I didn't expect was to feel this kind of pit of my stomach
impact of the, of the pain and the loss and the, and the,
and the sadness that happened in that
place.
And it's a very hard thing to explain because of course,
I should have known that I'd done the research, I'd written the script.
I, I had thought that I had made my kind of emotional connection
to
Titanic and to the event, but going to the wreck was a whole order of magnitude
greater, you know, and I'm not ashamed to, to, to say that,
that I cried after the first dive when I got back to the ship and just sort of let it,
let it hit me and wash over me.
And maybe it's what I did know and the history that I knew and the people that I,
that I knew we were on the ship,
uh
but, you know, in, in having done that then
I felt OK. Now, now I have something that I can communicate to the actors,
you know,
and I think that that every time an actor came in, whether it's whether,
whether it was Kathy Bates or,
or, or Kate or Leonardo, I, I had something to say to them
that piqued their interest
because they saw this.
Now, you know, maybe they read the script and thought disaster movie,
but now they're talking to me and they're hearing something different,
you know, and I think it guided the film in a, in a slightly different direction.
I'm not saying I really changed the script,
but it was really more a question of emphasis and, and,
and the, the emphasis we put on things,
you know,
I'm not ashamed to admit. I, I welled up during the movie as well. So
that's good
for your
nineties nineties guide.