Kevin Costner’s post-apocalyptic adventure minus a water-soaked advertising crisis and more a costly sadness.
Waterworld opened its doors 25 years ago in cinemas today, mounting a wave of hyperbolic collapse in its chaotic production and inflated budget. Originally planned as a $100 million adventure in “Mad Max on Water,” Kevin Costner’s vehicle suffered herbal disasters, adding a set of billions of dollars destroyed by the hurricane, rewrites, production revolvers, etc., which inflated the final charge to a record $175. Million. When the film, however, premiered in July 1995, it received mixed reviews and a pretty decent box office. Although, despite everything, it has reached its equilibrium point and (over the years) made a net profit, Waterworld is still considered a definitive Hollywood bomb. Waterworld is not a bomb, but rather a mere sadness compared to an accidentally large load. But that has still sunk into Kevin Costner’s career as a viable movie star.
Imagined as a bald scam from George Miller’s Mad Max films, Universal’s Waterglobal stars Kevin Costner as a human and (through gills) looking into a long-term world where melted polar ice caps flooded the surface. as we knew it. Like Mad Max, she is less of an absolute hero and more (possibly) a reluctant and occasionally hostile aid that sends our genuine protagonists, in this case a young woman (Jeanne Tripplehorn) worried about a young woman (Tina Majorino) whose tattoo on the back may be a map of the last dry land out of the water. But the evil smokers, the mercenary pirates driven through Deacon (a Dennis Hopper who masturbates the landscapes) also need this map, and a possible encounter in a doomed atoll pitts their fate against each other on a mutual collision course.
It was pegged as “Fishstar” and “Kevin’s Gate” even before release, smarmily referencing Ishtar (a $45 million Warren Beatty/Dustin Hoffman comedy that grossed just $15 million global) and Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino’s $44 million western epic which earned just $3.5 million and both sunk United Artists and ended the so-called Hollywood New Wave era of the 1970’s). The idea of Kevin Costner falling victim to his own hubris was too much to resist. This was four years after Dances With Wolves won him a Best Director and Best Picture Oscar while grossing $424 million worldwide on a $22 million budget) and after starring in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves ($390 million/$48 million budget) and JFK ($204 million/$40 million) and 2.5 years after The Bodyguard ($411 million/$25 million) became a smash despite miserable reviews.
The pre-release hysteria not only set the tone of the film before anyone saw it, but also shaped the narrative even after the film did not become a disaster. Jokes and allegations continued after the film premiered at $21.171 million and surpassed the weekend workplace for two weeks when summer came to an end. It earned $88.246 million in the domestic market, less than expected compared to the final charge, but also a strong multiplier from the weekend to the peak of 4.1x. It also raised $172 million overseas, for a global charge of $264 million. It was only 1.64 times its budget of $175 million, nothing wonderful even at a time when A) marketing was much less expensive and B) Hollywood’s major theaters were expected to earn a moment on VHS, HBO and, in all likelihood, on television networks.
With $100 million, Waterworld would have been a success, earning 2.64 times the budget, following Costner’s statement as a commercially viable leader. $100 million a massive budget in 1995, especially for a non-suite original, and even that charge would have matched Casper, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Batman Forever, Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Twister. That’s when big ones like Independence Day, Jurassic Park and GoldenEye can be made for around $65 million. But with $175 million, well, Waterworld never had a chance to be a theatrical escape success. Remember it was 1995, when only 12 films (Shark, Star Wars, ET, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghost, Pretty Woman, Terminator 2, Aladdin, Jurassic Park, Mrs.Doubtfire, Forrest Gump and The Lion King) had earned even $438 million ($2.5x 175 million).
Waterworld’s poor reception was the beginning of the goal for Kevin Costner as a picture in the workplace that drew “still in the seats.” Yes, he would score in 1995 with Ron Shelton’s formidable golf romance, Tin Cup (which still has one of the best results from any sports film), however, he would put an e-book at Waterworld with two probably biggest mistakes in the workplace. Wyatt Earp of Lawrence Kasdan, who had the terrible chance to open months after the tomb of George P. Cosmatos ($56 million from a $25 million budget in 1993), earned just $25 million from a $65 million budget in June 1994. Message from Kevin Costner: The apocalyptic The Postman, just the moment the film he made after Dances with Wolves, would garner depressing reviews and generate only $20 million out of an $80 million budget by the end of 1997.
Yes, there is a skewed irony in The Postman, which (despite noble artistic ambitions) an exercise in pride ($80 million, R-rated, 177 minutes) that Waterworld retained, forgot why Waterworld Array the 135-minute action-packed PG-13 adventure. film that grossed $264 million worldwide, is considered to be Kevin Costner’s Big Bomb. In fact, it was actually Wyatt Earp and The Postman who did more practical damage to Costner’s career as the lead. I would struggle with other budget-over-budget studio programmers, such as Nicholas Sparks’ adaptation of Message in a Bottle ($118 million but with a budget of $80 million), Thirteen Days ($66 million /$80 million), Has Rumor It ($88 million/$70 million) and The Guardian ($70 million/$95 million). For the love of the game, Swing Vote and Criminal were frankly puffs.
Its only star vehicle after Tin Cup is the formidable self-managed Western Open Range, which earned $68 million in 2003 on a budget of $22 million. To be fair, Three Days to Kill ($52 million / $25 million) and Mr. Brooks ($48 million /$20 million) were modest successes. Without entering the respective quality of Kevin Costner’s last 25 years with cars (Thirteen days is excellent, McFarland USA is very smart and Mr. Brooks is a lot of fun), Costner has discovered himself as a viable “value-added element” in Jack Ryan Shadow Recruit, Man of Steel, Molly’s Game and Hidden Figures, and as he has never ceased to be A) a smart actor and B) a captivating presence on the screen, gives him an aura of gravity as Superman’s father or mentor.
Costner has also become a kind of television star. Hatfields and McCoys, a miniseries directed through Kevin Reynolds (with Kevin and Kevin allegedly repairing the fences after fighting in Prince of Thieves and Waterworld) was a massive hit for The History Channel in 2012. It won a weight record (for any no (commercially funded cable sports event) with thirteen million audiences for each of the first two nights and 14 million for the final. Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone is in its third season at Paramount. The western of the fashion times was the highest-watched television broadcast of this network. It was the most-watched cable viewing moment in 2018 alone The Walking Dead and, as anecdotal evidence, lately represents ten of the thirteen most sensitive rentals or purchases on Amazon (17 of the 36 most sensitive).
Even in 1995, Waterworld was an unusually “built from scratch” blockbuster. The sets were authentic, the costumes, props and places were authentic and the death-defying stunts were authentic. I’m not going to pretend that I can tell you everything that’s practical in relation to the elements that have been advanced or modified. But like George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road 20 years later (and Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome ten years earlier), everything at Waterworld looked wonderful and looked genuine. In a summer ruled by animated adventures (Pocahontas), fantasies for children with a CGI character (Casper) and a Batman film with a climax that seemed to involve many random CGI for the sake of CGI, Waterworld’s practical magic, actually a great explanation for why budget excesses brought it to light then and now.
Waterworld plays as the new practical mega movie. Yes, the likes of Twister, Jurassic Park, The Phantom Menace and Independence Day had many outdated effects and only used new (and high-quality) computer-generated photographs to complement models, miniatures and others. But it’s no secret that new toys have become a dominant component of our successful landscape, and that the ability to make fantasy genuine has led to more blockbusters characterized by a certain lack of authenticity. Waterworld was a box office success where everything seemed 100 percent genuine. It also stands out, even more so in 177-minute “Ulysses Cut” (a lengthy edition that originally aired as a two-night network TV event), as a character-centric adventure film featuring a genuine antihero than just the smart one because the bad guys are worse.
Filled with incredible scenery and breathtaking stunts, Waterworld has become so incredibly beloved that even a global situation close to the best would not have been enough to make it a success. By renting and selling home videos, television rights and similar post-theatre transactions, Waterworld has finally become slightly profitable. He also encouraged the formidable Waterworld: A Live Sea Spectacular, an exhibition of acrobatics from Universal Studios that is a fan favorite, even among generations young enough to not even be aware of the original material. Waterworld is still a very smart film that may not bear the burden of your notorious budget. It was a sadness with the cost, an uplifting narrative and one of the last purely practical megafilms. It damages Kevin Costner’s concept as a movie star. But it wasn’t a failure.
I studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an analysis in the workplace, for almost 30 years. I’ve written a lot about everything
I studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an analysis in the workplace, for almost 30 years. I have written extensively on all these topics over the more than 11 years. My media for film reviews, workplace reviews and film bias scholarships have included The Huffington Post, Salon and Film Threat. Follow me on @ScottMendelson and like The Ticket Booth on Facebook.