Titanic is set to return to Netflix at the start of next month, and people are furious that the streaming site has appeared to capitalise on the disaster of the Titan sub.
‘Netflix is overstepping the boundaries of decency on this timing,’ one person said. ‘People died in a tragic accident [at] the Titanic site and now to capitalise on the moment to garner viewers is beyond distasteful.’
The heartbreaking news that the 5 people on board the vessel are believed to have sadly died broke last week. It came after debris was found that was “consistent with catastrophic loss of the pressure chamber.”
The sub, named Titan, was carrying 5 people down to the bottom of the ocean to see the Titanic’s shipwreck in real life, which is located 3,800m below sea level, and is 370 miles off the coast of Newfoundland. The trip is thought to have cost £195,000 per head.
It vanished on the morning of June 18 after losing contact with its mothership MV Polar Prince roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes into the vessel’s 2-hour descent.
On board the sub was Stockton Rush, the CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, the company who own the vessel and conduct the tourist trips. Alongside him was the British billionaire Hamish Harding, British-based Pakistani millionaire Shahzada Dawood and his 19-year-old son Suleman. The fifth person on board was Paul-Henry Nargeolet, a French submersible pilot who was considered one of the world’s leading experts on the Titanic.
Since the underwater vessel lost contact, the search effort hugely ramped up after authorities estimated that they were quickly running out of oxygen.
An update gave authorities more hope, as an aircraft detected “underwater noises in the search area.”
“As a result, ROV (remotely operated vehicle) operations were relocated in an attempt to explore the origin of the noises. Those ROV searches have yielded negative results but continue,” the Coast Guard tweeted.
It was additionally reported that a second aircraft with underwater detection abilities detected “banging sounds.”
However, in the wake of the heartbreaking discovery of the debris, the Coast Guard confirmed that these sounds were likely just ‘background ocean noise’.
Rear Admiral John Mauger explained to Sky News: “We’ve taken that information and shared it with top leading experts from the US Navy and the Canadian Navy, and they’re working on the analysis of that information, they’re continuing to work on the analysis of that information.
“The initial reports is that there’s a lot of the sounds that were generated were from background ocean noise, but they continue to … look for all available information there.”
OceanGate, who ran the expedition, released a statement addressing the heartbreaking loss.
“We now believe that our CEO Stockton Rush, Shahzada Dawood and his son Suleman Dawood, Hamish Harding, and Paul-Henri Nargeolet, have sadly been lost,” it began.
“These men were true explorers who shared a distinct spirit of adventure, and a deep passion for exploring and protecting the world’s oceans.
“Our hearts are with these 5 souls and every member of their families during this tragic time. We grieve the loss of life and joy they brought to everyone they knew.”
Following the tragedy, Netflix have been criticised after announcing that James Cameron’s 1997 movie Titanic was set to return to the service on July 1. It was removed last August, but is set to return next week.
“Netflix saw the opportunity and wasted no time,” one person wrote.
Another commented: “The timing is so wrong.”
A third said: “This is CRAZY shameless.”
However, turns out the timing is purely coincidental. Insiders revealed to Variety that the movie had been set to return for months. This is because of the amount of time licensing deals take to iron out, and so it is likely that Netflix knew Titanic would be returning in July long before the sub went missing.
