What to know about James Cameron’s Titanic and where the movie was filmed

JAMES Cameron’s retelling of the Titanic’s doomed voyage grossed over $2billion at the box office.

In order to bring the Oscar-winning film to the big screen, the massive vessel was replicated by Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox.

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Where was Titanic filmed?

While exhausting its $200million budget, Titanic was shot at several replicated film sets and historic sites such as:

• Baja Studios, Mexico
• Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia
• SS Jeremiah O’Brien at Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco
• Belmont Plaza Pool, Long Beach
• S.S. Lane Victory, San Pedro

Principal photography and filming for the 1997 blockbuster began on July 31, 1996, and concluded on March 23, 1997.

Baja Studios, Rosarita

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A majority of Titanic’s production was held at a movie studio complex in Mexico known as Baja Studios.

Located in Rosarito, Paramount Studios and 20th Century Fox reconstructed the Titanic in order to shoot the motion picture of the same name.

The replicated version of the ship was 10 to 15 times smaller than the actual vessel.

Some exterior shots and additional scenes were made with computer graphics.

Halifax Harbour, Dartmouth

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Some of Titanic’s scenes in its present timeline were filmed at Halifax Harbour in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia.

Specifically, the beginning of the movie where Bill Paxton and Gloria Stuart’s characters commence their search for the “missing” Heart of the Sea necklace was shot at the harbor.

Fisherman’s Wharf, San Francisco

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Docked at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco, the SS Jeremiah O’Brien was where many of Titanic’s interior sequences were shot.

The insides of the SS Jeremiah were redesigned to look as identical as possible to the Titanic’s interior.

The SS Jeremiah was built by the New England Shipbuilding Corporation in June 1943.

In order for the US to complete overseas voyages, the ship was utilized many times during World War II.

Presently known as the National Liberty Ship Memorial, the vessel resides at its home in Fisherman’s Wharf and operates as a WWII museum.

Belmont Plaza Pool, Long Beach

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Ever since Titanic premiered, Jack and Rose’s last moments together on a floating door have been a point of contention with the disaster epic’s viewers.

Although some of those sequences were filmed at Baja Studios, the remainder of production was held at the Belmont Plaza Pool.

At the time, the Belmont Plaza was one of the only pools large enough to act as the blockbuster’s sizable set.

Original Titanic wreckage, Atlantic Ocean

If viewers notice any of the sequences featuring the Titanic’s remains look close to the real thing, they’re absolutely right.

Also an avid diver himself, James Cameron collaborated with a maritime expedition team to lead a voyage to the ship’s post-collision location in the Atlantic Ocean.

“I’m not claustrophobic and I love diving. For me, it was like landing on the moon,” the director told Empire.

“I wasn’t scared. Half way through the first dive, we’d kind of plopped down on the deck of the ship, and there’s this moment of, ‘My God. We’re really at Titanic.’

“Then, there’s a moment where all the adrenaline and exhilaration dissipates.

“I remember the very first thing I saw. It was the robot that Robert Ballard used to go inside the Titanic.

“And they showed a little bit of one of the chandeliers handing there and I thought ‘My God… that’s incredible. They’re using this space technology to go into the past like a time machine,’ and something clicked right then.”