Wednesday, April 22, 1998
Titanic mania has spurred capitalists to jump aboard
CAPITALISM: Story spawns myriad ways to profit from tragedy
By Christopher Delaney
The Bradley Scout
PEORIA, Ill. — ‘Tis the season for weird – and perhaps
ill-advised – business ventures.
As the U.S. government tries to unload 2.2 million gallons of
Vietnam-era napalm (I’ll bid a buck for it), the rest of the world
is capitalizing on the most popular transportation disaster since
the Donner party.
And if that seems tasteless, a warning – it’s only the tip of
the iceberg.
Redefining tasteless, two Titanic replicas are in the works,
each aiming to successfully complete the original’s voyage across
the Atlantic. One is scheduled to sail in December 1999 and one in
April 2002 on the 90th anniversary of the disaster.
The Titanic, of course, was a massive luxury liner that struck
an iceberg and sank in April 1912. Leave it to capitalism to turn a
profit by dancing on the graves of 1,523 people.
British finance group Sunray Developments is bankrolling the
$691 million project, RMS Titanic, which recently announced it had
negotiated exclusive use of the Titanic’s original plans.
Not to be a stick-in-the-mud, but this strikes me as a bad
idea.
Not financially, mind you. Scarier than the fact of the endeavor
is the likelihood that it will turn a profit. A large one.
Assuming the capitalist world is not suddenly struck by a
decency epidemic – or a trend in common sense – RMS Titanic
probably will sell quite a few, if not all, of its 2,600 available
passenger slots, ranging from $30,612 for third class to $382,650
for "imperial" class.
That’s a lot of money. Most people don’t make in a year what a
one-way jaunt on Titanic II in third class would cost.
Still, all the evidence indicates that anything with the Titanic
label attached to it will reel in the dollars.
James Cameron’s massively popular "Titanic" has become the
highest-grossing movie of all time. Moviegoers who have seen
"Titanic" twice – and there are plenty of those – have a 75 percent
chance of seeing it a third time.
Moreover, record-shattering attendance at "Titanic: The
Exhibition" is largely responsible for keeping the Florida
International Museum afloat. The museum saw the exhibit’s 602,518th
visitor Monday as thousands of people lined up to see the show.
A year ago, the museum faced an uncertain fate, but museum
officials expect the increased revenue and exposure to secure the
museum financially for quite some time.
It may be morbid, but there doesn’t seem to be any reason the
replica should expect less than this level of success.
The RMS Titanic version of the ship will mirror the original
design, though it will include upgraded safety features, including
iceberg-seeking radar. Officials with White Star Line, the
U.S.-Swiss consortium designing the 2002 Titanic, say their version
of the liner "cannot sink."
Sure. We’ve heard that one before.
Of course, odds are that Titanic II will be fine. It’s just that
if I were building a boat, I wouldn’t name it Titanic. I’m not
superstitious by nature, but there’s no sense tempting fate. It’s
too much like naming a dog Cujo or a university Illinois State.
What makes Titanic II a bad idea – aside from all but daring
nature and terrorists to sink it – is the way the world is changing
tragedy to triumph.
Usually that’s a desirable endeavor, but in the Titanic’s case
the world has lost sight of the tragedy behind the disaster. As
"Titanic" wins the world over with a formulaic love story and nifty
special effects, the air of solemnity that should surround the
Titanic tragedy is dissipating.
This wasn’t a problem for "Schindler’s List," a movie that
didn’t glorify and romanticize the tragic.
But "Titanic" did. So we get a new load of museum exhibits,
documentaries, replicas and a fan club.
And on an even darker note, the "Titanic" fan club is pulling in
enough money to take out ads in newspapers and staff a 24-hour
telephone hotline.
But what can I say? People are sick.
On the brighter side, maybe Titanic II will give "Titanic" fans
material for a sequel.