19 Years Later, the Epic That 20th Century Fox Feared Would Bankrupt the Studio Has Become a Free Streaming Smash

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Brock Lovett looking at someone intently in Titanic

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For a movie that nearly gave its director a nervous breakdown and reportedly had studio executives bracing for disaster, Titanic just pulled off the most poetic comeback imaginable. James Cameron’s 1997 epic — the film 20th Century Fox famously worried could bankrupt the studio — is now sitting at #1 on Pluto TV, dominating free streaming charts nearly two decades after its release. No premium subscription. No re-release hype. Just vibes, heartbreak, and a ship that refuses to sink, and yes, Cameron knew exactly how bad things looked at the time, admitting to GamesRadar:

“When I was in the last six months of finishing the film, I knew my career was over, I knew we weren't going to make a dime, I knew that we had put a gigantic dent in 20th Century Fox's treasury, and that I would never be forgiven for the rest of my life.”

Titanic ballooned in cost, ran behind schedule, and became shorthand for “Hollywood excess.” Fox was so nervous it traded domestic distribution rights to Paramount just to stay afloat financially. Cameron even recalled that executives were fully expecting the worst:

“They had their knives out for us. They just thought we'd spent all this money and it was all going to be a gigantic flop. And we started to believe it ourselves.”

Was 'Titanic' Successful?

Then the movie came out, and everything changed. After a cautious opening weekend, Titanic did something Hollywood rules said was impossible.

“The second weekend, we went up. Movies don't go up. Movies only go down. That's when we realized we had stepped through the looking glass into some phantasmagorical world where movies could go up like a balloon.”

But then, wouldn't you know it, the movie came out, won 11 Oscars, was in theaters for a year, earned around $2 billion and became the most famous movie of all time. How did that happen? Cameron has his own theory. And it's a nice one.

“What was happening was people were having this heartbreaking, moving experience. And they were wanting to share it with people that they cared about… everybody was going at that point, from eight to 80. It’s a fictional story about love and death, mortality. Just as the historic tragedy was about sacrifice… the story of Jack committing himself to save her at all costs.”

Titanic is streaming now on Pluto.