News that a movie is in the works about the Titan submersible tragedy—which saw the death of five people earlier this year—has sparked outrage on social media.
Deadline has reported that MindRiot Entertainment and The Blackening producer E. Brian Dobbins will collaborate on a film about the incident. The online news site said that Dobbins will serve as co-producer, while MindRiot’s Jonathan Keasey and Justin MacGregor will write the film, currently under the working title Salvaged.
The announcement comes less than four months after the U.S. Coast Guard announced on June 22 that OceanGate’s Titan submersible was destroyed in a “catastrophic implosion.” The vessel had been diving off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada, to the site of the Titanic wreck. The implosion killed all of Titan‘s five occupants.
OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was onboard Titan, as well as French submersible pilot Paul-Henri Nargeolet; British adventurer Hamish Harding; British-Pakistani businessman Shahzada Dawood; and his 19-year-old son, Suleman Dawood.
OCEAN GATE/HANDOUT/ANADOLU AGENCY/GETTY
Deadline added that the upcoming movie will cover the periods of time before, during and after the tragedy. The U.S. and Canada led a vast and high-profile, days-long search after the submersible vanished on June 18.
Lawyer-turned-filmmaker Keasey said of the project: “The Titan tragedy is yet another example of a misinformed and quick-to-pounce system; in this case, our nonstop, 24-7 media cycle that convicts and ruins the lives of so many people without any due process.
“Our film will not only honor all those involved in the submersible tragedy, and their families, but the feature will serve as a vessel that also addresses a more macro concern about the nature of media today.
“Truth is all that matters,” Keasey added. “And the world has a right to know the truth, always, not the salacious bait crammed down our throats by those seeking their five minutes of fame. Life is not black and white. It’s complicated. There’s nuance. Always nuance.”
News of the project has been met with outrage on social media, with a number of people expressing concerns about the timing of such a movie.
“Seems too soon,” read one comment on X, formerly Twitter, which another posted that the filmmakers didn’t even let the one-year anniversary of the tragedy pass before forging ahead with plans for the movie.
Echoing that sentiment, another wrote that it “hasn’t even been a year, y’all are sick.”
Another X user posted: “‘You shouldn’t mock the dead, it’s disrespectful.’ More disrespectful than dramatizing, recreating and then profiting off those dead?”
Reiterating the focus on the timing of the project in relation to the tragedy, another commented: “Didn’t they die like 5 minutes ago????? What the???”
However, some X users wrote that they were looking forwarded to seeing a dramatized version of the tragedy, which dominated the news cycle at the time.
“A movie HAS to be made,” commented one, while another added that they “will be seated, my commentary gone be ruthless.”
“We already knew this was about to come,” wrote another X user. “Watch it become a blockbuster.”
Newsweek has contacted representatives of OceanGate via email for comment.
This will be the first feature film about the Titan tragedy. Days after the submersible went missing, U.K. TV network Channel 5 aired a documentary called Titanic Sub: Lost at Sea. In September, MindRiot revealed a docuseries called Salvaged, focusing on OceanGate’s former mission director Kyle Bingham.
There had previously been speculation that Titanic director James Cameron, who has visited the passenger-liner wreckage on a number of occasions, would be making a movie about the OceanGate submersible.
Shooting down the rumors, Cameron wrote in an X post back in July: “I don’t respond to offensive rumors in the media usually, but I need to now. I’m NOT in talks about an OceanGate film, nor will I ever.”
Following the tragedy, the OceanGate Expedition company said it had suspended all exploration and commercial operations. According to the company’s website, these remain suspended.