Kevin Costner’s most famous box office flop wasn’t the disaster people thought it was

Kevin Costner’s career has seen some amazing peaks and astonishing lows, but we’ve never seen the legendary and multi-Oscar-winning movie star as down and out as he is now. Newly released Hollywood Reporter Exposing has shed light on not only Costner’s rude behavior on the set of “Yellowstone.”but also his humiliating failure to secure financing to finish the proposed four-part Western saga titled “Horizon: An American Saga” (the first entry failed at the box office, leaving the eventual second film without a distributor) and his alleged violation of safety protocols on set when he forced a stuntwoman to perform an unscripted rape scene. Costner’s reputation for being difficult seems to have taken its toll on him now that he is no longer a plausible movie star and has become persona non grata in the world of the hugely popular “Yellowstone” (which he revived his career in the 2000s). The THR article paints a bleak picture, but it becomes unjustifiably harsh and completely ahistorical when its author cites “Waterworld” as the failure that led to Costner’s fall from commercial grace.

And here lies the problem with this assertion: “Water World” was not a failure.

According to a THR story, when Waterworld hit theaters on July 28, 1995, it quickly “became one of the biggest flops since…well, Heaven’s Gate.” The Disastrous Western Failure by Michael Cimino It’s a response to reports about Costner’s directorial debut, “Dances with Wolves” — which, with its grueling three-hour runtime and association with what was then considered a dead genre, was vilified before release as “Kevin’s Gate.” It took a toll on the crow when the film became a hit and Costner won Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Director. Five years later, the grossly overbudget “Waterworld” was derided as “Fishtar.” It was anything but.

As an original post-apocalyptic sci-fi film, “Waterworld” represented a major commercial risk for Universal Pictures. Although Costner just stumbled into the lead Lawrence Kasdan’s expensive western biopic “Wyatt Earp” He could ride out a speed bump after his 1987-1993 hitting streak. Factor in that he was teaming up again with “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” director Kevin Reynolds, and the studio couldn’t say no — even if the budget was a frighteningly high $100 million.

Before principal photography, Steven Spielberg urged Costner and Reynolds not to shoot the film in the open waters of the Pacific Ocean. The Jaws director was well aware that the budget would likely be bloated by relying on Mother Nature’s hospitality, but the filmmaking duo were determined to create a unique ocean epic and went ahead (filming in an enclosed area of ​​man-made seawater off the coast of Hawaii). This is how it started The nightmarish production of “Water World”, With the film crew often being pushed off-site by waves, poor weather stretching filming more than 50 days behind schedule, and the slave colony being partially submerged. After all, the film’s final budget was estimated at around $175 million, meaning it would have to gross around $350 worldwide to see profitability.

“Water World” received largely mixed reviews from the country’s leading critics. Only Chicago readers Jonathan Rosenbaum I came close to shooting the film, however Newsweek correspondent David Anson Delirium knocked. The film opened with a healthy, if unspectacular, $21 million domestically and finished with a worldwide total of $264 million. The film was clearly in the red, but this was far from a disaster on the scale of “Heaven’s Gate,” where a $44 million film grossed a paltry $3.5 million. Other films released between Cimino and Waterworld (such as Terry Gilliam’s The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, which grossed $8 million against a $47 million budget) were much bigger money losers.

Once “Waterworld” hits the home entertainment revenue window, it may already be profitable.

According to the earnings comparison I published Delivery time In 2013, “Waterworld” was nowhere near a flop. Although analyst numbers are outdated in the streaming era, there was a time when “Waterworld” could have been a well-managed risk. Finally, you could call it disappointing compared to its high cost, but it doesn’t belong in a conversation with it Amazing bombs like “The Adventures of Pluto Nash” “Slaughter Island” and “Incheon”.

As for the alleged damage to Costner’s career, he made a comeback with Ron Shelton’s critically acclaimed romantic comedy “Tin Cup” the following year (which, like “Waterworld,” became a cult favorite among parents years after its theatrical release), before finding real box office success with “The Postman.” It was critically panned in 1997. However, Costner got back on track in 1999 with the popular romantic drama. Message in a Bottle After a string of underperforming films (such as “Thirteen Days”), she reconnected with moviegoers with the modest Western “Open Range” in 2003. then The water became choppy.

Costner hasn’t had a box office hit in 22 years, and despite billionaires and Saudi Arabia begging for money, he’s nowhere near completing the final two films of “Horizon: An American Saga.” He’s facing this now, and it seems he’s brought many of these woes upon himself. But when you write about Costner’s troubled career, you do a disservice to cinema history when you call Waterworld a failure.