A TV series based on the 1995 Kevin Costner film Waterworld is on its way from Universal Television. With its $175 million budget, the film was the most expensive film ever made at the time. Today, of course, the idea of a film with a budget of $175 being record-breaking is laughable, but in 1995, the movie-going public was buzzing over Waterworld’s price tag. Unfortunately, when it was released amid this hype, audiences and critics were far from impressed.
In hindsight, it’s quite hard to believe that Waterworld didn’t perform better. The fact that it had such a high budget for the time likely contributed to this factor, as audiences were expecting something far more spectacular for such an exorbitantly high budget. Previous special effects extravaganzas of the time such as Terminator 2: Judgement Day, True Lies, and even in many respects, Forrest Gump, were all able to deliver top-notch big-screen fun on budgets that were still considerably lower than Waterworld’s. But the film’s story about a future existence where the melting of the polar ice caps has created a world that is almost entirely submerged led many to feel that it was simply 120 minutes of Costner floating around on the sea, looking for dry land.
Today the notion of a world in which the polar ice caps might just altogether disappear is a very real and frightening prospect. For this reason, audiences are perhaps more in tune with what dystopia could truly look like. The time just might be right, then, for Waterworld to make its return. As Collider reports, filmmaker Dan Trachtenberg (10 Cloverfield Lane) is currently attached to a TV series adaptation of the 1995 box-office bomb, with the film’s original producer, John Davis, currently developing the series. A writer has not yet been hired, but Davis plans to have one locked down in the coming weeks. The series aims to see the same cast of characters return, 20 years on from the events of the original film.
At present, there’s no word if Costner could actually return for the series, but at age 66, it’s unclear if the two-time Oscar-winner would be up for a series that is sure to require a considerable amount of physicality. Also unknown is what sort of direction the series would go in. Those who have seen the original film will recall that it ended with dry land having indeed been discovered, but Costner’s The Mariner character decides that it’s best for him to return to the sea. With the knowledge that dry land does exist in this unappealing future, audiences will be coming into the Waterworld series with a different mindset than audiences did for the film upon its release. Then again, as the series takes place 20 years on from the film’s ending, perhaps the environment has worsened and dry land is even harder to come by.
Of course, the issues that led to Waterworld’s failures at the box office back in 1995 can’t all be put down to an extremely costly film that didn’t live up to its budget. Many would argue its plotting and downright dull storyline played a major part in this too. There is, however, the argument that Waterworld was ahead of its time. If that was the case, then a new TV series based on the concept could provide a second chance at the critical recognition the film never quite managed to achieve.
Source: Collider