Produced in advance of the imminent James Cameron movie on the same topic, this miniseries was rushed into production and very hastily completed in order to cash in on the latter's before-release hype. This miniseries aired over two nights on CBS in late-November 1996. The first part received high Nielsen ratings, but experienced a huge drop during the second part, because most viewers got thrown off by the lackluster production. Since this miniseries was so rushed, it included mistakes and historical inaccuracies which Titanic enthusiasts found inexcusable given the wealth of knowledge about the liner and its occupants available by the mid-1990s.
This is the first Titanic movie to show the doomed ship splitting in two.
While largely dismissed in the United States and England as an inferior low-budget imitation of James Cameron's blockbuster (this movie entered pre-production as Cameron's movie was being shot), this 1996 miniseries remains very popular in Europe and Asia.
Famous Titanic passenger Benjamin Guggenheim is only seen once in this miniseries. Hazel Foley (Eva Marie Saint) points him out to Isabella Paradine (Catherine Zeta-Jones) as he is walking with his mistress Madame Aubert along the promenade deck when the Titanic is docked at Southampton. He and his valet are famous for dressing up in their best clothes during the final moments of the sinking and his quoted words "We have dressed in our best and are prepared to go down as gentlemen."
Famous American author Morgan Robertson published a novella titled "The Wreck of the Titan" (1898). It is a fictional story about a large passenger liner that struck an iceberg while sailing in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Ironically, the storyline in Robertson's book contains very striking resemblances to the events of the R.M.S. Titanic, despite it being written fourteen years earlier.