James Cameron said he “wouldn’t change a frame” of his Oscar-winning movie Titanic ahead of its 25th anniversary release.
The multi-award-winning director said he had learned during his long career not to “doubt yourself” and that given the chance, he would “probably make the same damn movie right now.”
It comes ahead of a special theatrical re-release of the acclaimed film, which was first released in 1997.
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet as doomed lovers Jack and Rose, Titanic garnered multiple Oscar nominations and wins in 1998.
When asked if he would change anything about the film more than two decades later, Cameron told PA news agency: “Why would I change a frame?
“We have 14 Academy Award nominations. We’ve had 11 wins, we’ve made more money than any movie in history. We continue to make a lot of money with it.
“I don’t think I’m smarter now than I was then, (in fact) I’ve probably lost a few brain cells since then.”
He continued: “I think I’ve learned over the years, artistically, don’t doubt yourself.
“That’s a snapshot of who you were and what you thought and believed at the time. And what I discover when I look back at all my movies, and there aren’t that many. I haven’t changed that much.
“I still believe the same things I believed then.
“If someone, you know, put the book about the Titanic on my desk and said ‘make a movie out of that’, I’d probably make the same goddamn movie I made back then.”
The remastered version of Titanic will be released in theaters on February 10 in 4K 3D.
Cameron said that he and producer Jon Landau had “nothing to prove” with the film’s second theatrical re-release, but that it was a “fun social experiment”.
“I feel like it’s all a bonus at the moment. It’s all frosting. So, you know, we have nothing to prove. We really don’t have anything to say that hasn’t already been said,” he told PA.
“I just see it as a fun social experiment to watch. You know, how much Titanic still means and in the zeitgeist — we know it meant a lot 10 years ago when we re-released it.
“Is there still that kind of interest or have people moved? Or does it still have such meaning for them?’
He added: “It’s a theatrical experience, right? It’s a kind of guarantee. In life there are not too many guarantees, but there is a guarantee that you will cry. Let’s just face it.”
Cameron said an exact remake of his exact story, that of Jack and Rose, would be “silly” and “stupid” but could “never rule out”.
‘I’m still alive, once I’m dead, people can do whatever they want.
“Titanic… exists as a historical event and everyone can access it and tell their own version of it.
“A remake of the exact Jack and Rose story? It would be rather silly.
“But you know, they waited until after Hitchcock was dead to remake Psycho with the same script, so anything is possible in this entertainment business.”
Cameron’s latest blockbuster, Avatar: The Way Of Water, also earned multiple Oscar nominations this year, including the coveted Best Picture.
Last month, he and Jon Landau, who produced both Titanic and Avatar, were honored at a party in Los Angeles, where they encased their hands and feet in cement outside Hollywood’s TCL Chinese Theater.