Sink Sank Sunk
an extract from Robert Cettl's book Film Tales: Movie Trivia in the Age of DVD (on sale now in print and soon in e-book)
Few film flops have the peculiar distinction of Raise the Titanic. Although producer Lew Grade (who seemingly will sadly be known forever to England's loftier critics as "Low" Grade) had been offered the screen rights to the Clive Cussler novel, he initially declined. However, sometime later, he envisioned that the lead character, named Dirk Pitt, could potentially be a rival to James Bond and optioned the screen rights, intending an epic action film. After numerous script re-writes, the immense production budget soon escalated when the original director left, citing the usual "creative differences". In addition, the scale model of the Titanic built for the film proved too big to be accommodated by any existing water tank. Eventually, modifications were made to one such tank in Malta. However, the water pressure was now so great that the model submersibles needed for certain scenes were crushed. Finally completed, the film was so rushed into release that no prior pre-screening could be arranged to judge whether any changes should have been made. Cussler so detested the film that he vowed never again to sell the screen rights to one of his novels. Indeed, Raise the Titanic proved so great a critical and box-office flop that Lew Grade later remarked that it would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.