Netflix is capitalizing off the recent horrific Oceangate submarine incident. Just a week after the sinking of the Titan submersible, the popular streaming service has confirmed the return of the Titanic film after removing it last year.

This is insensitive choice of streaming has poked at the hearts of those grieving from the recent loss of the passengers underwater. The film will officially be streamable on Netflix on July 1st.  The Titanic film is widely popular and a fan favorite that many were devastated when it originally was taken off said streaming platform. 

Why is this choice of marketing poor timing? In recent news, the nation has been following the whereabouts of the missing ‘Titan’ submarine that held 5 passengers, who each spent $250,000 to take a ride to see the remains of the Titanic ship lost in 1912. 

Contact was initially lost Sunday, June 18th at around 3,500 meters down. On Thursday, debris matching the submarine were discovered by a robotic vessel meant to search the deep sea.

Dr. Alan Gishlick, who teaches the Oceanography class at Bloomsburg University, shares perspective on the matter. It is believed that the hull of the ‘Titan’ imploded due to the enormous amount of water pressure in the deep ocean. 

“The deep ocean is perhaps the hardest place for humans to explore, in some ways even harder than going to space. High pressure is a lot harder to engineer for than no pressure. That is why fewer people have been to the deepest parts of the ocean than have been to the moon, and we know more about the surface of mars than the ocean floor.”

Researchers and experts behind the build of the submarine have been worried about the safety of their structure since the start of the build in 2018. Dr. Gishlick continued on, “Clearly something went wrong with the submersible, and this may have been related to design flaws or its unique construction.”

Netflix will add over a hundred movies this July and Titanic is a film of choice for the first day of the month.  Dr. Gishlick spoke upon this doubting the intent of Netflix initial re-streaming. “I would doubt the return of Titanic to Netflix has anything to do with the events of last week those licensing deals are negotiated well in advance and are on set schedules. So, I suspect it was already in the pipeline when this happened.”

The professor continued to share that he would not put it past Netflix to do so despite past marketing habits with other films. “Regardless, companies are free to market their products however they think will most benefit their business.” He is correct with that statement because the Titanic is on many peoples’ minds and probably will receive a lot of views in the near future.

Nevertheless, the timing is poor and has stirred up much commotion across social media, especially on Twitter. Strangely, Netflix has not shared this announcement across their social media platforms. Do they know this is a controversial choice? This risk taken may promote feedback and media about Netflix, but also promotes negative backlash.