Titanic

1 BLACKNESS

Then two faint lights appear, close together... growing brighter. They

resolve into two DEEP SUBMERSIBLES, free-falling toward us like express

elevators.

One is ahead of the other, and passes close enough to FILL FRAME, looking

like a spacecraft blazing with lights, bristling with insectile

manipulators.

TILTING DOWN to follow it as it descends away into the limitless blackness

below. Soon they are fireflies, then stars. Then gone.

CUT TO:

2 EXT./ INT. MIR ONE / NORTH ATLANTIC DEEP

PUSHING IN on one of the falling submersibles, called MIR ONE, right up to

its circular viewport to see the occupants.

INSIDE, it is a cramped seven foot sphere, crammed with equipment. ANATOLY

MIKAILAVICH, the sub's pilot, sits hunched over his controls... singing

softly in Russian.

Next to him on one side is BROCK LOVETT. He's in his late forties, deeply

tanned, and likes to wear his Nomex suit unzipped to show the gold from

famous shipwrecks covering his gray chest hair. He is a wiley, fast-talking

treasure hunter, a salvage superstar who is part historian, part adventurer

and part vacuum cleaner salesman. Right now, he is propped against the CO2

scrubber, fast asleep and snoring.

On the other side, crammed into the remaining space is a bearded wide-body

named LEWIS BODINE, sho is also asleep. Lewis is an R.O.V. (REMOTELY

OPERATED VEHICLE) pilot and is the resident Titanic expert.

Anatoly glances at the bottom sonar and makes a ballast adjustment.

CUT TO:

3 EXT. THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA

A pale, dead-flat lunar landscape. It gets brighter, lit from above, as MIR

ONE enters FRAME and drops to the seafloor in a downblast from its

thrusters. It hits bottom after its two hour free-fall with a loud BONK.

CUT TO:

4 INT. MIR ONE

Lovett and Bodine jerk awake at the landing.

ANATOLY:

(heavy Russian accent)

We are here.

EXT. / INT. MIR ONE AND TWO

5 MINUTES LATER:
THE TWO SUBS skim over the seafloor to the sound of

sidescan sonar and the THRUM of big thrusters.

6 The featureless gray clay of the bottom unrols in the lights of the subs.

Bodine is watching the sidescan sonar display, where the outline of a huge

pointed object is visible. Anatoly lies prone, driving the sub, his face

pressed to the center port.

BODINE:

Come left a little. She's right in front of us, eighteen meters. Fifteen.

Thirteen... you should see it.

ANATOLY:

Do you see it? I don't see it... there!

Out of the darkness, like a ghostly apparition, the bow of the ship

appears. Its knife-edge prow is coming straight at us, seeming to plow the

bottom sediment like ocean waves. It towers above the seafloor, standing

just as it landed 84 years ago.

THE TITANIC. Or what is left of her. Mir One goes up and over the bow

railing, intact except for an overgrowth of "rusticles" draping it like

mutated Spanish moss.

TIGHT ON THE EYEPIECE MONITOR of a video camcorder. Brock Lovett's face

fills the BLACK AND WHITE FRAME.

LOVETT:

It still gets me every time.

The image pans to the front viewport, looking over Anatoly's shoulder, to

the bow railing visible in the lights beyond. Anatoly turns.

ANATOLY:

Is just your guilt because of estealing from the dead.

CUT WIDER, to show that Brock is operating the camera himself, turning it

in his hand so it points at his own face.

LOVETT:

Thanks, Tolya. Work with me, here.

Brock resumes his serious, pensive gaze out the front port, with the camera

aimed at himself at arm's length.

LOVETT:

It still gets me every time... to see the sad ruin of the great ship

sitting here, where she landed at 2:30 in the morning, April 15, 1912,

after her long fall from the world above.

Anatoly rolls his eyes and mutters in Russian. Bodine chuckles and watches

the sonar.

BODINE:

You are so full of sh*t, boss.

7 Mir Two drives aft down the starboard side, past the huge anchor while

Mir One passes over the seemingly endless forecastle deck, with its massive

anchor chains still laid out in two neat rows, its bronze windlass caps

gleaming. The 22 foot long subs are like white bugs next to the enormous

wreck.

LOVETT (V.O.)

Dive nine. Here we are again on the deck of Titanic... two and a half miles

down. The pressure is three tons per square inch, enough to crush us like a

freight train going over an ant if our hull fails. These windows are nine

inches thick and if they go, it's sayonara in two microseconds.

8 Mir Two lands on the boat deck, next to the ruins of the Officer's

Quarters. Mir One lands on the roof of the deck hous nearby.

LOVETT:

Right. Let's go to work.

Bodine slips on a pair of 3-D electronic goggles, and grabs the joystick

controls of the ROV.

9 OUTSIDE THE SUB, the ROV, a small orange and black robot called SNOOP

DOG, lifts from its cradle and flies forward.

BODINE (V.O.)

Walkin' the dog.

SNOOP DOG drives itself away from the sub, paying out its umbilical behind

it like a robot yo-yo. Its twin stereo-video cameras swivel like insect

eyes. The ROV descends through an open shaft that once was the beautiful

First Class Grand Staircase.

Snoop Dog goes down several decks, then moves laterally into the First

Class Reception Room.

SNOOP'S VIDEO POV, moving through the cavernous interior. The remains of

the ornate handcarved woodwork which gave the ship its elegance move

through the floodlights, the lines blurred by slow dissolution and

descending rusticle formations. Stalactites of rust hang down so that at

times it looks like a natural grotto, then the scene shifts and the lines

of a ghostly undersea mansion can be seen again.

MONTAGE STYLE, as Snoop passes the ghostly images of Titanic's opulence:

10 A grand piano in amazingly good shape, crashed on its side against a

wall. The keys gleam black and white in the lights.

11 A chandelier, still hanging from the ceiling by its wire... glinting as

Snoop moves around it.

12 Its lights play across the floor, revealing a champagne bottle, then

some WHITE STAR LINE china... a woman's high-top "granny shoe". Then

something eerie:
what looks like a child's skull resolves into the

porcelain head of a doll.

Snoop enters a corridor which is much better preserved. Here and there a

door still hangs on its rusted hinges. An ornate piece of molding, a wall

sconce... hint at the grandeur of the past.

13 THE ROV turns and goes through a black doorway, entering room B-52, the

sitting room of a "promenade suite", one of the most luxurious staterooms

on Titanic.

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