James Cameron said a new “Titanic” investigation will finally settle the Jack and Rose “door” debate once and for all after fans have speculated for nearly three decades about the fate of both characters from his 1997 disaster-romance film.
Cameron said that a National Geographic documentary, “Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron,” recreated the famed floating door scene and proved whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, Jack, could have survived by climbing onto the debris in the middle of the freezing waters, USA Today recently reported.
Cameron first shot down the fan theory that it was a door at all during a Television Critics Association panel.
“A new investigation we’ve just done will settle this fan-based question about Jack and Rose and a piece of floating debris, which everyone calls a door,” the director shared.
“It’s technically not a door,” he added, before noting that “it’s a piece of wood paneling from the first-class cabin.”
In honor of the film’s 25th anniversary, the documentary has scientifically recreated the exact situation from the film where Rose managed to survive floating on what was believed to be a door, but Jack perished in the freezing waters after the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean.
Marking the anniversary of the film, Titanic: 25 Years Later with @JimCameron will settle the debate once and for all: could Jack have survived? Find out Sunday, February 5 at 9/8c on National Geographic. pic.twitter.com/2SKx5cUagf
— National Geographic TV (@NatGeoTV) January 14, 2023
The documentary hired two stunt doubles with similar sizes to DiCaprio and Winslet’s characters who were placed in 56-degree water. Cameron said the documentary then “doubled the time for every stage” of the recreation for this investigation, Fox News noted.
“That actually plots out quite accurately according to the algorithms,” Cameron shared of the “scientific approach” to determine if Jack could have survived if instead of remaining in the water, he had pulled himself up onto the floating debris with Rose.
“We weren’t trying to prove or disprove anything, we’re just trying to say, ‘If you do this, does it make it better?’” he added.
“Across four tests, we came to some pretty hard and fast conclusions,” the director of the film continued, without revealing what they found.
The documentary will air February 5 on National Geographic.
Related: Kate Winslet, James Cameron Share Opinions On Infamous ‘Titanic’ Door Debate