Titanic director finally explains why Jack couldn't fit on the door

28 November 2017, 09:57 | Updated: 28 November 2017, 10:15

It's the main question all Titanic movie fans have asked for 20 years. Did Jack have to die or was there room on that door?

In the classic 1997 movie, Leonardo DiCaprio's Jack perished after freezing to death in the icy waters, while his lover Rose (Kate Winslet) saw him drift away while sitting pretty on a makeshift raft made out of a door.

Many fans have pondered why Jack didn't get on the door too, as it seemed big enough to fit them both. Couldn't they have at least taken turns?

Well, after many years of badgering from fans, director James Cameron has answered the question for us. Well, kind of.

"The answer is very simple because it says on page 147 [of the script] that Jack dies," he told Vanity Fair. 

He continued: "Obviously it was an artistic choice, the thing was just big enough to hold her, and not big enough to hold him.

"Had he lived, the ending of the film would have been meaningless. The film is about death and separation; he had to die. So whether it was that, or whether a smoke stack fell on him, he was going down."

He added that he never expected it to be such of a big deal: 

He also said that he never knew it would be such a big deal: "I think it’s all kind of silly, really, that we’re having this discussion 20 years later. It’s called art, things happen for artistic reasons, not for physics reasons."

A couple of years ago, Cameron teamed up with Discovery Channel show Mythbusters to see whether two people could have survived on the door. Watch the results below: