I was trying to think of some stars myself.
Maybe George Clooney doing it instead of Batman & Robin. Neve Campbell as lovers destined to die. Kind of Romeo and Juliet vibe. Pierce Brosnan as the captain of the U-boat.
Yeah, that's what I figured. By trying to quash the film the British government would draw even more attention to it. The publicity campaign would be easy to create
Lusitania-After the monumental box office success of Titanic a decision was made to follow it up with the story of the Lusitania. There were diplomatic protests due to the scripts emphasis on the alleged evidence that it was carrying munitions which made it a legitimate target, but the movie...
The other thing to take into account is the UK. IIRC the UK and Japan were allied at th II s time. I tend to think that the UK would abandon their alliance in favor of the USA but I could be wrong.