Mar 26, 2012 by Harout Harman

James Cameron Reaches the Ocean's Deepest Point and Sets New Solo Dive Record

James Cameron sets new deep sea dive record
James Cameron sets new deep sea dive record
As of 10 p.m. ET, James Cameron's submarine surfaced in the Pacific after diving nearly 7 miles below sea level. The director arrived at the bottom with equipment to collect data and deep sea specimens for scientific research.

The director tweeted earlier today, showing his excitement about the challenge:

James Cameron Tweets after dive
"Just arrived at the ocean's deepest pt. Hitting bottom never felt so good. Can't wait to share what I'm seeing w/ you @DeepChallenge"


He is the first human to reach the milestone, which began early Sunday morning just southwest of Guam in a 12-ton submarine headed to the bottom of the Mariana Trench. The trip to the surface took around 70 minutes after spending about 6 hours down at the bottom of the trench.

"Jim came up in what must have been the best weather conditions we've seen, and it looks like there's a squall on the horizon," said NASA astro-biologist Hand.


Throughout the Mariana Trench dive, 3-D video cameras were kept whirring, and not just for the benefit of future audiences of planned documentaries.

"There is scientific value in getting stereo images because ... you can determine the scale and distance of objects from stereo pairs that you can't from 2-D images," Cameron told National Geographic News before the dive.

But "it's not just the video. The sub's lighting of deepwater scenes-mainly by an 8-foot (2.5-meter) tower of LEDs-is "so, so beautiful," said Doug Bartlett, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, California.


The director has been an oceanography enthusiast since childhood and has 72 deep-sea submersible dives under his belt. Thirty-three of those dives have been to the wreckage of the Titanic, which helped inspire his 1997 hit. Titanic is being re-released in 3D in select theaters.


Sources: National Geographic

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Comments (34)

  1. moviegeek

    Awesome.

    1 year agoby @moviegeekFlag

  2. felipe-11

    @Intoxicated Definitely.

    @ridgl He's obviously filming a doc*mentary in 3D as well which will surely be released in IMAX, not to mention this is gonna be an inspiration for the underwater creatures landscapes that we'll see in the Avatar sequels, so this IS movie news.

    And you obviously have no idea of the process that goes designing creatures in ANY film. Making a realistic animal that can move properly and have believable evolutionary characteristics with other creatures is much more hard work than making a wacky alien with 3 heads and penises instead of fingers, which is obviously what you would draw if they gave you a pencil.

    @Christophe Yeah, MW got it wrong, but Cameron and NatGeo have already said that they wanted to repeat that journey, so it's not like they're trying to fool anyone.

    1 year agoby @felipe-11Flag

  3. Ghostman

    @SherlockHolmes2009@XxNickTheFilmCriticXx i don't think i'll be able to dive that deep haha!

    1 year agoby @ghostmanFlag

  4. SherlockHolmes2009

    @ghostman lol it might happen. But seriously congrats to Cameron

    1 year agoby @SherlockHolmes2009Flag

  5. MovieWiz001

    Go on Cameron!

    1 year agoby @moviewiz001Flag

  6. CUPID

    So full of himself.

    1 year agoby @cupidFlag

  7. Nicholaus XX

    @ghostman -- I figured, but it was still a opportunity to do the comparison.

    1 year agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  8. Robertswww

    Fantastic achievement... way to go Jim!

    1 year agoby @robertswwwFlag

  9. Corey W.

    Looking for Jack's skeleton?

    1 year agoby @coreyFlag

  10. Ghostman

    @XxNickTheFilmCriticXx I know, it was a joke.

    1 year agoby @ghostmanFlag

  11. Nicholaus XX

    @ghostman -- Ha, I don't think that will happen, or at least any time soon. He's basically a better version of Michael Bay, ha.

    1 year agoby @XxNickTheFilmCriticXxFlag

  12. ridgl

    @Intoxicated research? magical and awesome? there is no research that goes into this. EVERYTHING in Avatar falls under the same 2 laws (1. take a mammal and remove the hair. 2. add an extra set of legs. except the Navi which is stupid). Inevitably, creatures will end up being "not quite a fish" or forest spirits but with scales or something.
    don't give him too much credit. Also, everything down there is so dark that the 3D camera won't help much more than a regular camera. There is absolutely no point going that deep except that he wants to do it, which is fine, but then don't make a story out of it.

    1 year agoby @ridglFlag

  13. ridgl

    @Intoxicated research? magical and awesome? there is no research that goes into this. EVERYTHING in Avatar falls under the same 2 laws (1. take a mammal and remove the hair. 2. add an extra set of legs. except the Navi which is stupid). Inevitably, creatures will end up being "not quite a fish" or forest spirits but with scales or something.
    don't give him too much credit. Also, everything down there is so dark that the 3D camera won't help much more than a regular camera. There is absolutely no point going that deep except that he wants to do it, which is fine, but then don't make a story out of it.

    1 year agoby @ridglFlag

  14. Dan

    That's pretty awesome and ballsy.

    1 year agoby @dan1Flag

  15. ridgl

    i thought this website was called MOVIE web, not Rich Director does sh*t in the name of research for his next film but actually does it for no other reason than to break records and get more stories about him.

    1 year agoby @ridglFlag

  16. Space101

    Congrats to James on accomplishing this!

    1 year agoby @space101Flag

  17. Joshua Hollaway

    I hate him

    1 year agoby @Joshua-HollawayFlag

  18. Intoxicated

    I'm sure James was spending 6 hours down at the bottom of the trench by doing some research with the 3D cam, by collecting enough inspiration to make sure that both avatar sequels would be more magical and awesome than the first one.

    1 year agoby @IntoxicatedFlag

  19. Pjwolsker

    thatta boy!!

    1 year agoby @pjwolskerFlag

  20. thedude-abides

    Hahaha. Hell Yeah!

    1 year agoby @thedude-abidesFlag

  21. Harout Harman

    @brian Agreed. This is awesome!

    1 year agoby @micetro9345Flag

  22. The Dark Knight

    He's still King of the World

    1 year agoby @thedarkknight23Flag

  23. Jean Mailloux

    @ghostman lol good one!

    1 year agoby @jean-maillouxFlag

  24. Diaigma

    Awesome! (as if holding the BO record wasn't enough for him) :P

    1 year agoby @diaigmaFlag

  25. Bawnian©-Dexeus

    Wonder if he saw a Meg

    1 year agoby @bawnian-dexeusFlag

  26. Mutant

    Congrats James

    1 year agoby @zenderFlag

  27. Bawnian©-Dexeus

    I',m sure the research was valuable :p, anyways, cool beans!

    1 year agoby @bawnian-dexeusFlag

  28. Christophe

    It's totally inaccurate, James Cameron is not the first human to reach the earth's crust. Don Walsh (navy) and Jacques Piccard did it 52 years ago, in 1960! They reach 10,916 meters. Cameron is only the first "solo" explorer, which basically means... he is onlythe third one.

    1 year agoby @ChristopheFlag

  29. CelluloidDreams

    Congrats James Cameron!

    1 year agoby @2movieguysFlag

  30. Ghostman

    "Hitting bottom never felt so good" hope you don't say that when your career dies :)

    1 year agoby @ghostmanFlag

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