Iconic Titanic door from film in which Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio clung to sells for a stunning $718,000

Titanic’s iconic door which Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio clung to in the 1997 film has sold for a whopping $718,750 at auction.

The balsa wood prop was at the center of the film’s climactic scene in which Jack Dawson (DiCaprio) and Rose DeWitt Bukater (Winslet) struggle in icy waters after the ship goes down. 

They attempt to clamber onto a piece of debris in the freezing cold North Atlantic Sea. It seems there is only room for one on the door, so Jack sacrifices his spot for Rose. He ends up freezing to death in the water, while Rose survives, has a family and lives to be an old woman, just as Jack wanted.

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The door – which has also sparked a decades-old debate over whether Jack could have survived – was sold at the Heritage Auctions’ Treasures from Planet Hollywood event, with its sale price beating Indiana Jones‘ bullwhip from Temple of Doom ($525,000) and Jack Nicholson’s axe from The Shining ($125,000).

The auction notes the door is ‘in reality part of the door frame just above the [ship’s] first-class lounge entrance’.

Winslet’s chiffon dress that she wore during the film’s finale sold for $125,000. 

Titanic’s iconic door which Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio clung to in the 1997 film has sold for a whopping $718,750 at auction 

The auction notes the door is ‘in reality part of the door frame just above the [ship’s] first-class lounge entrance’

Three Sankara  stones from The Temple of Doom sold for $100,000 and the Holy Grail ‘cup of a carpenter’ from The Last Crusade  sold for $87,500.

Bill Murray’s red-rose bowling ball from Kingpin sold for $350,000, Tobey McGuire’s black symbiote suit from Spider-Man 3 fetched $125,000) and the shaving cream can which Dennis Nedry used to smuggle dinosaur embryos in Jurassic Park sold for $250,000.

In 2022 Titanic director  James Cameron who has frequently rubbished claims that Jack could have survived,  told The Toronto Sun that he conducted the ‘forensic study’ with hopes that he ‘won’t have to deal with the speculation anymore after 25 years’.

He said: ‘We have done a scientific study to put this whole thing to rest and drive a stake through its heart once and for all. We have since done a thorough forensic analysis with a hypothermia expert who reproduced the raft from the movie and we’re going to do a little special on it that comes out in February.

‘We took two stunt people who were the same body mass of Kate and Leo and we put sensors all over them and inside them and we put them in ice water and we tested to see whether they could have survived through a variety of methods and the answer was, there was no way they both could have survived. Only one could survive

‘[Jack] needed to die. It’s like Romeo and Juliet. It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. The love is measured by the sacrifice…Maybe after 25 years, I won’t have to deal with this anymore.’

Titanic’s ending has caused a storm of protest among viewers since its release with many fans attempting to disprove that only Rose could have survived – insisting there was plenty of room on the door for Jack. 

Winslet’s chiffon dress that she wore during the film’s finale sold for $125,000

Jack Nicholson ’s axe from The Shining fetched $125,000

Back in 2017 in an interview with The Daily Beast, the Academy Award winning filmmaker explained how Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jack had to die in the end and how no episode of Mythbusters can convince him otherwise. 

The Canadian director seemed perplexed that so many have spent time trying to debunk Titanic’s tragic ending. 

‘Look, it’s very, very simple: you read page 147 of the script and it says, “Jack gets off the board and gives his place to her so that she can survive.” It’s that simple. You can do all the post-analysis you want.’

There was even an episode of the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters that described a variety of ways Jack could have been saved. Cameron actually joined the team of scientists to test their theories, but the director just wasn’t buying it.

He broke down the facts in a very scientific manner, explaining:

‘OK, so let’s really play that out: you’re Jack, you’re in water that’s 28 degrees, your brain is starting to get hypothermia, Mythbusters asks you to now go take off your life vest, take hers off, swim underneath this thing, attach it in some way that it won’t just wash out two minutes later’

The sale beat Indiana Jones‘ bullwhip from Temple of Doom ($525,000)

James continued: ‘[That] means you’re underwater tying this thing on in 28-degree water, and that’s going to take you five to ten minutes, so by the time you come back up you’re already dead.

‘So that wouldn’t work. His best choice was to keep his upper body out of the water and hope to get pulled out by a boat or something before he died.’ 

The Avatar director has no bitter feelings for the myth busting scientists though, saying: ‘They’re fun guys and I loved doing that show with them, but [with this] they’re full of s**t.’

In 2019 the director weighed in again while speaking to BBC Radio 1’s film critic Ari Plumb,   

James disagreed with the assessment, saying: ‘it’s just stupid’ and called it a ‘dumba**’ argument.

In a previous interview with Vanity Fair, the director explained that Jack would have died in the film even if he had climbed on the door.

He said: ‘I think it’s all kind of silly, really, that we’re having this discussion 20 years later, but it does show that the film was effective in making Jack so endearing to the audience that it hurts them to see him die.

‘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. It’s called art, things happen for artistic reasons, not for physics reasons.’

One person who believes otherwise is the film’s leading lady Kate.

During an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, the host jokingly brought up the famous scene with the actress, leading them to re-enact it.

The Oscar winner joked: ‘I held my hand up, I let him go’, but insisted: ‘He should have tried harder to get on that door.’

Titanic grossed over $2billion worldwide during its release. The February special will coincide with the release of  a 4K restoration of Titanic that is scheduled to open in theaters on Valentine’s Day weekend 2023.