For many people, a party isn't a party until you're tricking people into getting dangerously intoxicated. This logic has resulted in many a punch bowl being secretly tainted with whatever flavor of Schnapps was marked down at the liquor store that morning. The set of James Cameron's Titanic, while not technically a party in the traditional sense, definitely qualified in the "huge gathering of people eating from the same bowl" sense, so in keeping with tradition, some noble prankster (who remains unidentified to this day) decided to spike the crew's lobster chowder with PCP. That's right -- 50 members of the cast and crew of Titanic (presumably those who didn't eat alone in their trailers like a weirdo) got seriously wet. Ahem.
Paramount Pictures
This entire steerage scene was just security footage they colorized in post.
Instead of an unforgettable dance-off and some impromptu karaoke, the prank resulted in a terribly sick crew and wound up sending 50 people to the emergency room. As we said, nobody knows who was behind the "joke" (which is a term here meaning "mass poisoning"). Was it James Cameron himself, trying to figure out who was cool enough to run with his crew? Was it Billy Zane being Billy Zany (we would have also accepted "pulling a Billy Zinger")? Was it the vengeful ghost of the actual Titanic?
Whatever the case, a doctor officially diagnosed the crew as "stoned," while actor Bill Paxton took special note of his co-workers' strange behavior -- laughing, crying, and milling about aimlessly -- while he himself became incredibly paranoid. The entire situation sounds almost as miserable as actually filming a movie with James Cameron.
630 Comments