How Titanic’s Iconic Necklace Almost Sank an Entire Company

You can buy a replica of the necklace from the 1997 film Titanic from many vendors, but only one company got the rights to the design from the film: The J. Peterman Company. Their replicas were authentic, well-made, expensive, and best of all, officially licensed. Company founder John Peterman knew the movie would be big before it was released, and his gamble paid off.  

But how did Peterman get his hands on such a valuable piece in the first place? “I remember it like it was yesterday,” he tells me by phone. “Someone in the company said, ‘I know this movie, Titanic, is coming up. It’s a period movie, and the same kind of stuff we always do. We should have a deal with them!” Peterman’s team reached out to 20th Century Fox a few months before the film was set to hit theaters in December 1997 and struck a deal: They’d buy some of the actual props featured in Titanic, in addition to licensing the whole lot for commercial reproduction. “This was the first time that had ever been done,” Peterman says of the deal, “and we ruined it for everyone else — because suddenly, [the studio] realized those props had value.”

The company sold most of the props they obtained, and replicas of the costumes from the movie. But the necklace, known as the Heart of the Ocean, was a big hit. It sold amazingly well. Too well, as you'll see in an article at Racked. -via Digg
 


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