{"id":78804,"date":"2024-04-26T08:51:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-26T13:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=78804"},"modified":"2024-04-25T10:53:28","modified_gmt":"2024-04-25T15:53:28","slug":"have-you-seen-raise-the-titanic-1980","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=78804","title":{"rendered":"Have you seen…Raise The Titanic! (1980)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By JOHN BILLINGER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yep. That\u2019s a real movie.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the night the Titanic sank, there had been numerous far-fetched plans to raise the wreck. Some of those plans included filling the wreck with ping pong balls, and somehow encasing it within a giant iceberg (kind of poetic) and having it rise to the surface. Some of these plans were rejected, and some nearly had full funding. But at every turn, all of these plans never went to fruition. A big reason as to why, is that for years there was no way to reach the wreckage. Not until 1985 did the Titanic remain undiscovered and untouched on the sea floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, the idea of raising the wreck today seems implausible. In its final moments, the Titanic broke in half. It\u2019s in two sections and has deteriorated gradually over the last 112 years. But before the wreck was discovered, people thought that it was perfectly intact (long story), so the idea seemed somewhat plausible, especially to writer Clive Cussler, who in 1976 published his novel \u201cRaise the Titanic!\u201d as a part of his Dirk Pitt book series. It was a best seller and attracted the attention of producer Lew Grade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The idea was that if this film were a hit, then it would serve as the basis for a film series adapting the other Dirk Pitt adventure books. Hypothetically, it would\u2019ve been the American equivalent of James Bond. To make a long story short, the finished project was released in August of 1980 and was a complete commercial failure. With a budget of $35 million, it made only $7 million. Grade would later reflect that \u201cit would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.\u201d Clive Cussler vowed never to allow any of his other books to be adapted for film, although a film adaptation of another one of his books was made – 2005\u2019s \u201cSahara,\u201d which also was a commercial failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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