A Titanic screenplay signed by Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet and other major cast members sold at auction for £620 on Thursday, a modest sum for a piece of film history that still drew a fight among bidders. The script went under the hammer at Clevedon Salerooms in north Somerset.
For collectors, the appeal was simple: a first-hand link to the 1997 blockbuster that turned DiCaprio and Winslet into global stars and became the first movie to pass $1 billion at the worldwide box office. Titanic later grossed more than $2.2 billion and held the record as the highest-grossing film of all time for 12 years, until Avatar overtook it in 2009.
Henry Michallat, who handled the sale, said three people really, really wanted the script during the bidding. He described it as a physical connection to one of the greatest films ever made and said scripts do not come to auction often compared with other Titanic memorabilia such as furniture, ceramics and clothing, which can fetch very high prices. That made the screenplay, in his view, a rare and affordable chance for a fan to own something direct from the film.
The buyer got more than signatures from DiCaprio, Winslet, Billy Zane, Kathy Bates, Gloria Stuart and James Cameron. The screenplay also came with a certificate of authenticity issued by Starpower Autographs, and it was part of a single-vendor collection built over many years. Even so, the final figure underlined how unpredictable memorabilia markets can be: a document tied to one of cinema's biggest titles changed hands for less than some collectors might have expected, despite the names on the page.
What happens next is not clear, and the auction house did not identify the buyer. For now, the script has moved from a long-held private collection to a new owner, leaving the unusual auction result as the day's main story: a Hollywood artifact with heavyweight signatures, sold at a price that made it accessible rather than untouchable.
