OceanGate Sub Tragedy Precluded Netflix Adding Titanic Back To Service For Streaming
On June 18th, 2023, the submersible Titan owned by underwater tourism and research company OceanGate disappeared during a dive down to the wreck of the Titanic, the famous ship that sunk in the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 1912 after a fateful collision with an iceberg. In the days that followed the disappearance, extensive efforts were made to locate and hopefully rescue the passengers on the sub, which included OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush, billionaire adventurer Hamish Harding, deep sea explorer and Titanic expert Paul-Henri Nargeolet, and businessman Shahzada Dawood and his teenage son, Suleman.
Tragically, later in the week it became clear that the submersible had likely imploded due to a compromised hull, with all of the passengers dying instantly in the implosion. This was confirmed when the US Navy realized that audio of the event had been captured on sonar about an hour and 45 minutes into the dive, and pieces of wreckage began to be located for salvage.
The devastating loss of the Titan submersible became intertwined with the infamous sinking of the Titanic over a century previous, as the sub passengers had been diving to the doomed ship's wreck to see it firsthand when the catastrophic implosion occurred. Because of this, when it was announced that the 1997 film Titanic would be returning to Netflix just days after the tragedy, many saw it as the service capitalizing on the major news event in a bid to get streams due to revitalized interest in the Titanic itself.
The romantic epic film Titanic was released in 1997 and quickly became one of the most successful films ever, capturing a massive $2.25 billion all-time box office gross as of its most recent re-release into theaters this February to mark the movie's 25th anniversary since release. At the 70th Academy Awards the film received 11 Oscars and 14 nominations, tying it with 1959's Ben-Hur for the most wins in the Academy's history. The story of the film centers around a pair of star-crossed lovers, played by Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, who's iIl-fated romance plays out against the disaster of the ship's sinking. Interestingly, this storyline is juxtaposed with a "modern-day" plot about divers descending to the Titanic's wreck in a bid to find an extremely valuable necklace thought lost in the sinking.
Subscribers Threaten Boycott Due To Netflix 'Capitalizing' On Sub Story
The Titanic film directed by James Cameron returned to Netflix on July 1st after a period off of the service, which many saw as an effort by Netflix to "exploit" the recent OceanGate tragedy. One Twitter user even cancelled their Netflix subscription over the issue:
The same user also added, sarcastically, "Netflix marketing director: 'You know how we could really capitalize on the tragic deaths of those people? Put the Titanic on Netflix for some easy cash because $31.6 billion a year in revenue isn’t enough.' How broken and sick does your brain have to be to think this way? And it’s not just one person. This decision likely went through countless managers, departments, executives, etc."
This user, however, unintentionally hit on the likely truth of the situation—adding Titanic back onto Netflix was probably a decision that had been in the works for months through various channels, at least due to rights and licensing requirements, meaning it's fairly improbable that the streamer was able to wrangle all of that together in a mere two weeks to get the film back on to the service for July 1st. Chalk it up more to bad timing than bad intentions on Netflix's part.
Some users, though, still feel the streaming giant is "overstepping the boundaries of decency" with the timely addition:
It does not appear any representatives from Netflix have directly commented about the decision to bring Titanic back to the service so soon after the OceanGate tragedy, though Variety reported the licensing deal was in place for months before the unfortunate coincidence. Titanic became available once more on streaming for United States and Canada subscribers starting July 1st, and soon hit the Top 10 of films watched globally on the app for the week following its debut.