James Cameron has conceded that Jack Dawson “might have lived” if he’d made it onto the raft at the end of his 1997 blockbuster, Titanic. To celebrate the film’s 25th anniversary, the filmmaker participated in National Geographic special Titanic: 25 Years Later With James Cameron, in which three scientific tests were conducted by stunt actors to determine if Jack (Leonardo DiCaprio) could fit on a raft alongside Rose DeWitt Bukater (Kate Winslet). 

In one of the stunts, two actors about the same size as Winslet and DiCaprio, performed the “strenuous activities” that the characters went through in the film. Cameron then had the female stunt performer give her life jacket to the male performer, which does not happen in the film. Had this been shown in the movie, Jack would have been “stabilised,” and could have potentially “made it until the lifeboat got there”, Cameron said. But the character wouldn’t have allowed this to happen, Cameron explained, because Jack’s “thought process was, I’m not going to do one thing that jeopardised her”.