Cue the Leonardo DiCaprio dating jokes!

James Cameron‘s Titanic is officially 25 years old. It premiered in theaters on December 19, 1997, and despite concerns it wouldn’t break even after an extensive 2.5 year production, the action romance epic went on to break MULTIPLE records!

With a production budget of $200 million, it was the most extravagant film to be made at that time. Cameron himself even WENT DOWN to the wreckage site of the RMS Titanic, 13,000 feet below the surface of the Atlantic ocean, to get real footage for the disaster flick. It paid off, though. With average ticket prices at the time being around $6, Titanic went on to earn an initial worldwide gross of 1.84 BILLION DOLLARS! Yep, it was the first movie to ever reach billion status. Moviegoers loved watching Leo and Kate Winslet so much, many of them kept going back to watch it again and again. It was #1 at the box office every single week until April 1998, when it was finally dethroned by Lost In Space. Still, even without the top spot, fans were dedicated, keeping Jim’s passion project (LOLz) in the cinema all the way through October 1, 1998.

A true feat!!

On April 4, 2012, a 3D version was released, bringing its total gross to $2.195 billion. Fans were eager to go back and relive the sweeping storyline.

After all, Titanic wasn’t just a commercial success, its critical acclaim landed it 14 Oscar nominations and 11 wins, including Best Picture (if that wasn’t obvious by now). But those are just the boring business facts! On to the fun facts…

BLOOP!

Cameron is known for being a perfectionist, but even Academy Award winning Best Directors make mistakes! Watch the video (above) to catch the movie’s biggest bloopers!

HEART GOES ON ALL THE WAY TO THE BANK

It’s not just the movie that broke records, the theme song did, too! After the release of the film, Celine Dion‘s My Heart Will Go On quickly rose to #1 on the charts in over 25 countries, cementing its legend as the world’s top record of 1998. Composed by James Horner, the power ballad is one of the most popular singles of all time — the second best-selling physical single by a woman in history! It went on to win numerous awards, including the Oscar for Best Original Song and a Grammy for Record of the Year. To commemorate Titanic‘s 20th anniversary, our beloved songstress performed the classic at the 2017 Billboard Music Awards — WATCH (below):

IT WAS ALMOST ROMEO + JULIET PART 2

Leonardo’s star became a supernova after Titanic, but he was already a Hollywood heartthrob thanks to 1996’s Romeo + Juliet. The Baz Luhrmann version of the William Shakespeare tragedy also starred Claire Danes, and according to her, she was wanted for the role of Rose! The Homeland actress revealed on a 2020 podcast episode of Armchair Expert that the studio had “strong interest” in her co-starring alongside Leonardo again. Ultimately, though, she felt she wasn’t ready to take on such a project, telling host Dax Shepard:

“I was really clear about it. I wasn’t conflicted. It was going to propel me to something I knew I didn’t have the resources to cope with. I knew I had to do a lot of foundation building.”

Obviously it all worked out for the best, as Claire went on to her own Emmy award winning success. Not only that, but the world got the gift that is Leo and Kate’s 25+ year friendship. The two became IRL best friends, and they even did another film together in 2008, Revolutionary Road.

When the Wolf of Wall Street actor finally won his Oscar for The Revenant in 2016, Kate was right there to cheer him on (3:54, below).

She would later tell The Guardian of their relationship:

​​“I’ve known him for half my life! It’s not as if I’ve found myself in New York or he’s been in London and there’s been a chance to have dinner or grab a coffee and a catch-up. We haven’t been able to leave our countries. Like so many friendships globally, we’ve missed each other because of COVID. He’s my friend, my really close friend. We’re bonded for life. … You don’t even want to know the last conversation we had, because it was so funny and made me laugh so much. We found ourselves saying to each other, ‘Can you imagine if the world really knew the stupid things we say?’ I’m not going to tell you what we actually talk about, but yeah, we’re very, very close. Sometimes we do quote the odd Titanic line back and forth to each other, because only we can, and we find it really funny.”

Yeah, see? Besties.

ROSE’S PORTRAIT

Remember when we said J.Cam was a perfectionist? Well, a certain amount of fixation comes with any artist, but in this case it even extended to the nude portrait of Rose. The filmmaker was so put off by other artists’ renderings he decided he was just gonna have to draw her like one of HIS French girls! Those hands you see going to work in the film? They’re his! Watch him tell Oprah all about it, starting at 21:00 (below):

ALTERNATE ENDING

In the final cut, old Rose (Gloria Stuart, RIP) decides to pay her final waking life respects to the ship of dreams. Still on the expedition yacht, she ventures out to the deck in her nightgown, and climbs up the rails just like her younger self did on Titanic 84 years prior. Under a sky full of stars, she looks down into the Atlantic waters, reflecting on what she’s been carrying with her all this time. The memories of her trauma are heavy, just like the famed Heart of the Ocean she pulls out of her pocket. Up to this point, the fate of the blue diamond was unknown to the audience. The film flashes back to young Rose having made it to New York City. She’s departed the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued Titanic survivors in life boats, and she’s looking up at the Statue of Liberty — symbolizing how she’s not just found American freedom but her own, too. When asked her name, she doesn’t give her birth name of DeWitt Bukater, she declares herself “Dawson, Rose Dawson,” officially taking Jack’s last name as her own way of honoring him. Then we see it. We finally see it. Her hands are in her pocket, and she realizes something’s in them. She pulls this mysterious object out, and holy s**t, there it is. Cal (Billy Zane) had put it in his coat pocket earlier in the sinking, and later he put it on her to keep her warm, not realizing. (Now, how this necklace didn’t get lost under water from the time of the sinking until this point, we don’t know. But *movie magic* says it did, so..) Cut back to old Rose. She’s got the diamond in her hand, and just like the weight on her heart she’s been lugging all this time, she finally lets go of it.

*splash*

The scene was so iconic it was even referenced in Britney Spears‘ 2000 Oops!…I Did It Again music video at 2:45 (below):

In the alternate ending, however, Brock Lovett (Bill Paxton, RIP) finds Rose on the deck and tries to convince her NOT to lay the insanely expensive jewelry to rest at the site of the doomed ship. See for yourself (below):

Pretty cringe, right? SO glad they cut it. Blegh!

So what do U think, Perezcious mariners? Did we catch the most fun facts? Got any you like? Let us know in the comments (below)!

[Image via Apega/WENN & Paramount Pictures]

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