Sentimental value: Floating door from Titanic beats Indiana Jones’ bullwhip at auction

IANS

The wooden slab that Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet hang onto in the last scene of filmmaker James Cameron’s 1997 film Titanic has fetched over Rs 5 crore ($718,750) at an auction. Heritage Auctions announced that its recent Treasures From Planet Hollywood auction collected Rs 1, 56, 80,000 ($15.68) million in total.

Movie props that were sold at the auction included Harrison Ford’s bullwhip from 1984’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the axe Jack Nicholson wielded in 1980’s The Shining and, the piece of balsa wood.

While the prop item is referred to as the “floating door” by fans of the movie, the item is actually “part of the door frame just above the (ship’s) first-class lounge entrance,” as per the auction.

The iconic prop sold for Rs 5 crore $718,750 at the auction and turned out to be the event’s highest-selling item, among 16 total props that sold for more than Rs 83,36,960 ($100,000).

The wooden door was not the only prop from Cameron’s film made available at the auction. A prototype of the same piece of wood sold for Rs 1,04,21,200 ($125,000), while the wheel used for the boat in the movie sold for Rs 1,66,74,030 ($200,000).

The dress Winslet wore in the film’s final scene as her character Rose and DiCaprio’s character Jack descend into the water, sold for Rs 99,00,205 ($118,750), while a telegraph prop used in the film sold for Rs 67,73,824 ($81,250) per a release.

Information included within Heritage Auctions’ website reads that the slab of wood is “based on the most famous complete piece of debris salvaged from” the real-life April 1912 sinking of the RMS Titanic. The wooden prop used in the film has long been the subject of fan debate over whether DiCaprio and Winslet’s characters could have both stayed afloat on top of the slab of wood.