'Titanic' Had An Unlikely Savior In Kurt Russell
Our trailer was long. To us, it seemed proportionate to the length of the movie. And necessary. It was the first footage almost anyone outside the studio and production team had seen of “Titanic.” The stakes were high. Everyone was tense. We’d spent five years and $200 million. At times, it seemed like the whole world was rooting for us to fail. Time magazine ran a “Titanic” cover story with the cover line “Glub, Glub, Glub . . .” The sound of the big ship sinking.
Rae and I sat at Paramount’s table at ShoWest with some of their top executives and biggest names, including Kurt Russell, the star of their upcoming film “Breakdown.” I sat nervously as our trailer played in that banquet hall in Las Vegas, and just as it ended, Kurt Russell loudly announced, “I’d pay ten dollars just to see that trailer again.” With that, we got a special dispensation from the Motion Picture Association — trailers were supposed to be 150 seconds, max — to release a four-minute-and-two-second trailer to audiences around the world.
And from that day on, every negative article about the film ended with the sentiment that the movie might actually be good. It was a real turning point.
I love stories like this.
Like it or not, Titanic is one of the most important movies ever made but, yea, it's a tough sell as they described it. So to hear how Kurt Russell, one of the coolest guys in Hollywood, went to to bat for them is really cool. It also goes to show you how much the little things like that stick with people. This excerpt is from the posthumous memoir of Jon Landau, who has produced 3 of the top 4 highest-grossing movies of all time.
It reminds me of another story from right around that time period. Right around this time, Guy Ritchie could't find a distributor for hist first movie, 'Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels'. Matthew Vaughn asks another producer, who is a friend of Tom Cruise, to invite him to a buyers screening. Cruise shows up and all the mid-low level suits in attendance scramble to their phones and get their bosses down to the screening. Credits roll, Cruise says "This is the best movie I’ve seen in years, you guys would be fools not to buy it'. Launches the career of Ritchie, Vaughn, Jason Statham, Dexter Fletcher, domino effect also launches Taron Egerton etc.
Another thing to consider, imagine this movie was being made today? On paper, it would be a borderline impossible pitch. 3-1/2 hour long romantic historical drama that cost (scaled) $500+ million to make? With two young, relatively small stars? There is just no way a studio would sign off on it(especially since it isn't attached to an existing IP) and I don't think people would go to see it without insane word of mouth.