Kevin Costner calls Waterworld flop 'a joy' to make

Kevin Costner, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino in a scene from the film Waterworld (1995). Photo / Getty Images

Twenty years after it first came out, Waterworld is still cited as one of the biggest box office flops of all time.

Yet it's star Kevin Costner has said he stands by the much-derided blockbuster. In a new interview, he even says it was "a joy" to make.

The 1995 movie, about a post-apocalyptic world where the ice caps have melted, was considered a box office bomb and critical failure when first released. It grossed US$88 million (NZ$133m) at the US box office on a budget of US$172 million (NZ$261m), and barely broke even when foreign earnings were added.

The film sits at 42 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes, and the news of its runaway budget and production troubles added to the bad buzz.

Yet Kevin Costner, who led the film as The Mariner, is standing by what is usually cited as his biggest disaster.

Speaking to Jeff Wells at Hollywood-Elsewhere.com, Costner said it was easy to criticise a movie without knowing what went into making it.

"I'm not sure you know how hard people work [on films]. I'm not sure you know how beloved the movie is around the world. Being hard [on a film] is really easy if you don't know the underbelly of what [went into it]. When you do know the forensics of a movie - the participation and decisions of others that one has to stand in front of - you can't help but see it differently," he said.

Costner, who also produced the movie, added that he does not consider it to be a "low point" in his four-decade long career.

"It could have had a better, more obvious outcome. The thing I know is that I never had to stand taller for a movie when most were going the other way. The movie with all its imperfections was a joy for me ... a joy to look back upon and to have participated in."

Bruce Feldman, who worked on the PR team for Universal when the movie came out, also defended Costner and the movie.

"Kevin was under a lot of pressure, and at the end of the day the film did quite well. Everything in Hollywood can't be perfect ... you can't be perfect ... some things work out brilliantly and some don't."

At the time of its release, the US$170 million budget made Waterworld the most expensive movie ever made. It came just four years after Costner won two Oscars for directing and producing Dances with Wolves.

- nzherald.co.nz