His only outright starring vehicle hit after Tin Cup remains the terrific self-directed western Open Range, which earned $68 million in 2003 on a $22 million budget.
For the Love of the Game, Swing Vote and Criminal were outright whiffs. He would struggle with additional overbudgeted studio programmers like Nicholas Sparks adaptation Message in a Bottle ($118 million but on an $80 million budget), Thirteen Days ($66 million/$80 million), Rumor Has It ($88 million/$70 million) and The Guardian ($70 million/$95 million). Truth be told, it was surely Wyatt Earp and The Postman that did more practical damage to Costner’s career as a leading man. Yes, there is a skewed irony in The Postman, which was (noble artistic ambitions notwithstanding) every bit an exercise in hubris ($80 million, R-rated, 177-minutes long) that Waterworld was held up as, has been forgotten why Waterworld, the action-packed, 135-minute, PG-13 adventure flick that earned $264 million worldwide, is held up as Kevin Costner’s great bomb. Doubtfire, Forrest Gump and The Lion King) had earned even $438 million (2.5x $175 million). Remember this was 1995, when only 12 movies ( Jaws, Star Wars, E.T., Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Ghost, Pretty Woman, Terminator 2, Aladdin, Jurassic Park, Mrs. But at $175 million, well, Waterworld never had a shot at being a breakout theatrical smash. This was when biggies like Independence Day, Jurassic Park and GoldenEye could be made for around $65 million. $100 million was huge budget in 1995, especially for a non-sequel/original, and even that cost would have equaled Casper, Die Hard with a Vengeance, Batman Forever, Terminator 2: Judgement Day and Twister. That was just 1.64x its $175 million budget, not great even in a time when A) marketing was a lot cheaper and B) there was an expectation that big Hollywood theatricals would earn a second life on VHS, HBO and eventually network TV.Īt $100 million, Waterworld would have been a hit, earning 2.64 times that intended budget continuing Costner’s claim as a commercially viable leading man. It also earned $172 million overseas, for a $264 million global cume. It earned $88.246 million domestic, lower than hoped in relation to final cost but also a strong 4.1x weekend-to-final multiplier. The jokes and the doomsaying continued after the film opened with $21.171 million and topped the weekend box office for two weeks as summer came to an end. The pre-release hysteria not only set the tone for the film before anyone actually saw it, it shaped the narrative even after the film didn’t become an outright disaster.
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