Hurricanes and hair implants: this is how ‘Waterworld’ became the biggest fiasco in the history of cinema (or not)

There is a man in Hollywood who has no more bullets left in his chamber. Is called Kevin Costner and he has been a living legend in the industry for decades, but, after the premiere of the first chapter of Horizon, he has found himself, once again, trying to seduce an audience and critics that he had already dominated. The director of dancing with wolves has returned behind the camera after almost two decades with horizona tetralogy that he had been dreaming about since the eighties, and whose first installment can be seen in Spain in Max and Movistar Plus+.

Kevin Costner filmed, simultaneously, the first two parts of his saga, which It was due to reach its equator in August. However, the low collection of the initial chapter has forced him to rethink his move, allowing it to land on platforms before the second reached the theaters. The Venice Film Festival has lent him a hand and Costner has been able to exhibit Horizon 2 in the Italian exhibition.

Costner’s cathedral western is preceded by a no less ambitious investment: the actor and director has sold a large part of his assets to pay for horizon. It is by no means the first time that Costner has risked everything: it already happened with his second title as a filmmaker, Messenger of the futureand, perhaps, with the best-known failure of commercial cinema, Waterworld. But this deserves a separate paragraph.

The Shipwreck of Kevin Costner

Traditionally attributed to Costner, Waterworld was directed by Kevin Reynolds, with whom the protagonist of Yellowstone had already worked in Robin Hood. Waterworld tested the status of Kevin Costner, who had, in 1995, chained titles as praised as JFK, A Perfect World either Wyatt Earpin addition to the box office The bodyguard.

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It can’t be said any other way: the powers that be in Hollywood wanted Kevin Costner. AND Waterworld, which was sponsored as the most expensive movie ever made (later, I would overcome it Titanic), was an ideal pretext to knock him down from his pedestal. Contrary to what is often believed, Waterworld He began to be branded as a failure even before anyone saw a single frame of his footage.

As production progressed, rumors of a sea storm in Waterworld began to circulate: there was talk of a fight between Costner and Reynolds over the final cutwhich Costner would supposedly end up reducing from 3 hours to 135 minutes. “Kevin Costner should only act in the films he directs,” was the phrase alleged to Reynolds, with whom Costner, however, would agree in 2012 in the miniseries Hatfields & McCoys.

Kevin Costner did not remain unfazed as everyone involved in Waterworld They were looking for funds so that the project would not die in their hands. He himself invested $22 million to keep him alive. Not even nature was in favor of the Hollywood star: a hurricane destroyed part of the setwhich had to be rebuilt at a price of gold, and a couple more tornado warnings They stopped filming for weeks.

Nor did Costner spare any expenses: according to a controversial rumor, not currently denied by its protagonist, the countless scenes filmed on the high seas caused Costner to discover that he was losing his hair. Because hair technology was still in its infancy (years later, Costner would be the first to use it), the actor pushed for the visual effects team to take extra care with his hair, and this increased costs considerably.

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Kevin Reynolds believed it was an absurd waste, but the production company closed ranks around Costner in, perhaps, the last straw for the director, who left post-production in the hands of the actor. Besides, Waterwold It was not without risk for its interpreters: two actresses almost drowned and Costner himself nearly died in a scene in which he had to tie himself to the mast of a ship.

With these precedents, Waterworld It premiered on July 28, 1995 in the United States. And, despite being dubbed Hollywood’s biggest fiasco, the film made profits. Its box office was not as catastrophic as promised, and some critics even praised the film.

However, as happened with the last installment of Mission Impossible, so much had been invested in it that much more was expected, and that proportion was not met. Maybe everything would have been cheaper if Kevin Reynolds had heeded Spielberg’s advice: “Never shoot a film at sea”. He had already done it with Shark and had lived to tell the tale. But, of course, he was Spielberg.

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