Best known for directing some of the highest-grossing films of all time, James Cameron is also a big fan of the deep sea. So much so that the filmmaker responsible for “Titanic” (1997) has dived 33 times to visit the wreck – and even released a documentary about it in 2003, “Ghosts of the Abyss”.

But in 2012, he spoke to the New York Times about his expedition to the Mariana Trench, the deepest point in the ocean at nearly 11,000 meters below the surface. “You are going to one of the most unforgiving places on Earth,” he said. “Not that I can call a tow truck to pick you up.”

Cameron’s love of the sea, and of the Titanic, dates back to childhood. So much so that the director stated to “Playboy” magazine in 1999 that a film starring Leonardo DiCaprio was never his original goal.

“I made ‘Titanic’ because I wanted to dive into the wreckage, not because I wanted to film it,” he said.

“When I heard that some people had dived into the Titanic to make an Imax movie, I said, ‘I’m going to make a Hollywood movie to pay for the expedition and do the same.’

The plan worked. Unadjusted for inflation, “Titanic” has the fourth-highest worldwide box office gross of all time (the first “Avatar”, also by Cameron, was No. 1).

So much so that it spawned the 2003 documentary film. In “Ghosts of the Abyss”, the director invites his friend Bill Paxton, part of the cast of “Titanic”, to visit and narrate the expedition to the wreckage, which elicited the most detailed information. a picture of a sunken ship that has ever been registered.