Her heart went on, and so too has the debate over whether Jack could’ve fit on that door. Either way, the slab of wood made famous by mega-blockbuster “Titanic” has now sold for more than half a million dollars at auction.
Among the pieces from the Treasures From Planet Hollywood auction, the wooden panel that saved the life of Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet) in James Cameron’s record-breaking 1997 romantic epic, sold for a whopping $718,750, according to a press release Monday from Heritage Auctions.
Though only a drop in the ocean when compared to the billions the film itself raked in, the door went for more than Indiana Jones’ bullwhip from 1984’s “Temple of Doom,” which sold for $525,000.
Heritage Auctions notes on the slab’s information page that while it’s “often mistakenly referred to as a door” that was actually just “part of the door frame just above the first-class lounge entrance” from the recreation of the doomed 1912 ship.
“The iconic prop has caused much debate from fans, many of whom have argued that the floating wood panel could have supported both [Leonardo DiCaprio’s] Jack and Rose — making his fateful decision to stay in the frigid water an empty gesture,” noted Heritage, pointing to the heartthrob’s death by hypothermia.
“Cameron would later engage in a scientific study to prove that this plot point was more than just a convenient narrative device.”
Last year’s National Geographic special, “Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron,” features “a forensic investigation” into that very question.
“Best case we can imagine is they both kneel on the raft, facing each other, use their body heat together, kind of in an embrace,” says the three-time Oscar winner, as actors simulate alternative configurations.
The panel initially struggles beneath the pair’s weight, with Cameron noting, “That thing is way too unstable.”
While the pair ultimately found one scenario in which Jack “could have made it pretty long, like hours,” Cameron, 69, noted the actors hadn’t endured a fraction of what Jack and Rose went through in the film’s more than three-hour runtime, to get to that slab. “He couldn’t have anticipated what we know today about hypothermia. … Jack’s survival might have come at the price of her life. There’s a code of chivalry that men had in those days.”
The “Avatar” writer-director also noted that Jack’s “individual character” may have been more concerned with the “epic love” at the center of the film.
Originally dubbed “unsinkable,” the luxury RMS Titanic passenger liner hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage in April 1912, resulting in the deaths of over 1,500 passengers and crew members.
