James Cameron plans to settle Titanic's eternal raft debate once and for all

Director James Cameron is going to prove that there was no way Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) would have survived alongside Rose (Kate Winslet) at the end of Titanic.

"Maybe I didn’t do [Jack’s sacrifice] in a way that everyone agrees with, but Jack had to die. It’s that simple. If I have to make the raft a little bit smaller, I’ll make it smaller," Cameron told the Toronto Sun, with perhaps more than a knowing nod to the perpetual debate over whether Jack and Rose could have both fit on the makeshift raft after the sinking of the Titanic.

"Incidentally, we have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert, reproducing the raft from the movie. We’re going to do a special that comes out in February: we took two stunt people that were the exact body match of [Kate Winslet] and [Leonardo DiCaprio] and put sensors all over them and inside them. We tested to see if they could have survived by this method, or that method. The answer was: there was no way they could both survive.”

So, James Cameron has gone to extreme lengths to settle what has long been regarded as one of cinema’s biggest ‘plot holes’ – despite being addressed in the movie itself when Jack attempts to get on the floating door with Rose. Seriously, watch the movie again.

Cameron’s Avatar sequel The Way of Water, meanwhile, is currently making waves at the box office, grossing $435 million worldwide in its first weekend. Discover which films will go up against Avatar 2 next year in our guide to upcoming movies.