Long before James Cameron’s Titanic in 1997, and even before 1958’s A Night to Remember, Adolf Hitler and his Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels looked to score a cinematic triumph with a feature / propaganda film based on the 1912 maritime disaster.
The resulting film, Titanic, is now set to become the subject of its own movie, with Deadline reporting that George Gallo (Middle Men, Columbus Circle) has signed on to direct The Nazi Titanic from a script by Scott D. Rosenbaum and Josh Posner.
The Nazi Titanic will tell the story of the banned 1943 movie, which Goebbels saw as an opportunity to blame the Titanic tragedy on British and American greed and incompetence. Goebbels enlisted director Herbert Selpin, granting him a budget equivalent to $200 million of today’s money, conscripted the passenger liner SS Cap Arcona to double as the Titanic, and drafted soldiers from the front lines to serve as extras.
Unfortunately for Selpin, Goebbels also had spies on the set, and the filmmaker was arrested after ranting about the Third Reich on set. He was subsequently found hanged in his cell, with another director coming on board to finish the film. However, it was ultimately banned by Goebbels, who feared it could weaken the German population’s morale.
“[Titanic is] without a doubt one of the strangest, most remarkable stories of the Second World War”, said Gallo, who is hoping to go into production on The Nazi Titanic early in the new year.
Via Deadline
