July 15 (UPI) — Oscar-winning Titanic filmmaker James Cameron is denying media speculation that he is considering making a movie about the OceanGate submersible disaster that killed five people in June.
“I don’t respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now. I’m NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever be,” Cameron tweeted Saturday.
OceanGate announced earlier this month it had suspended all exploration and commercial operations in the wake of the deadly implosion of one of its vessels on its way to the ocean floor so its passengers could see the remains of the Titanic, which sank in 1912, leaving more than 1,500 dead.
Cameron — who wrote and directed the classic 1997 film Titanic, helped design machines to safely travel to and capture rare footage of the wreck and made 33 dives to visit the remains of the luxury liner — has publicly said the OceanGate vessel was unsafe and shouldn’t have been allowed to take passengers on voyages.
“I’m struck by the similarity of the Titanic disaster itself, where the captain was repeatedly warned about ice ahead of his ship and, yet, he steamed up full speed into an ice field on a moonless night,” Cameron recently told ABC News.
“And many people died as a result and for a very similar tragedy where warnings went unheeded to take place at the same exact site with all the diving that’s going on all around the world I think is just astonishing. It’s really quite surreal.”
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was among the five victims on the doomed submersible named Titan last month.