James Cameron Scientifically Tests if Jack Could Have Fit on the Door at the End of Titanic

James Cameron is not one for half-measures. When making Titanic, he used every image and description of the ship he could lay his hands on to build accurate sets & models and financed 12 dives to the ship’s actual wreckage on the bottom of the ocean floor to gather footage to use in the film. For the mega-blockbuster’s 25th anniversary, Cameron has returned his attention to Titanic, to scientifically test the fan theory that there was enough room on the door for Jack at the end of Titanic (see the video above).

In order to reexamine Jack’s final moments, Cameron enlisted help from a team of scientists and two stunt people to test four different scenarios to examine whether two people could have shared the door.

“Jack and Rose are able to get on the raft, but now they’re both submerged in dangerous levels of freezing water,” Cameron explains as the stunt people prove it.

Meanwhile in another example, Cameron details, “Out of the water, violent shaking was helping him and projecting it out, he could’ve made it pretty long, like hours.”

If you can stand the forced-cheer morning show banter, there’s a bit more footage of Cameron and the testing from Good Morning America:

Cameron’s ultimate conclusion: “Jack might’ve lived, but there’s a lot of variables.”

• James Cameron
• movies
• Titanic
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