Titanic director James Cameron has dismissed theories suggesting the film could have had a happier ending. Over the years, fans have debated whether there was enough room for Jack, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, on the wooden door which saved Rose's (Kate Winslet) life after the ship went down. However, in a new interview with the Daily Beast, the 62-year-old director has rubbished the idea. "We're going to go there? Look, it's very, very simple: you read page 147 of the script and it says, 'Jack gets off the board and gives his place to her so that she can survive.' It's that simple. You can do all the post-analysis you want," he explained.
"So you're talking about the Mythbusters episode, right? Where they sort of pop the myth? OK, so let's really play that out: you're Jack, you're in water that's 28 degrees, and your brain is starting to get hypothermia." James was responding to an old episode of Mythbusters, which attempted to debunk the idea that both of the main characters could have survived.
Titanic director James Cameron pictured at the 40th Anniversary of Rolex Awards for Enterprise
He added: "Mythbusters asks you to now go take off your life vest, take hers off, swim underneath this thing, attach it in some way that it won't just wash out two minutes later - which means you're underwater tying this thing on in 28-degree water, and that's going to take you five to ten minutes, so by the time you come back up you’re already dead. So that wouldn't work. His best choice was to keep his upper body out of the water and hope to get pulled out by a boat or something before he died."
Titanic was released in 1997 and went on to achieve critical success
During the Mythbusters episode, which aired in 2012, James made an appearance to defend the ending. "I think you guys are missing the point here," he explained. "The script says Jack dies, he has to die. Maybe we screwed up. The board should have been a tiny bit smaller. But the dude’s going down."
Titanic was released in 1997 and went on to achieve critical success. The movie was nominated for an impressive fourteen Academy Awards, and took accolades for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Cinematography. Leonardo and Kate's career rocketed, becoming one of the most loved on-screen pairings in Hollywood.