Why waterworld flopped

With international takings covering the movie's entire budget, however, it's likely that Universal didn't lose any money on what was admittedly a questionable film.

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This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano. Reynolds left the project, leaving Costner an Oscar-winning director in his own right for Dances With Wolves to finish the rest of the picture.

Notwithstanding this, Reynolds is still credited as the sole director for the finished film. The costs of rebuilding sets and other production delays turned what should have been a scheduled day shoot into a massive days. Once the film was released reviews were mixed. There was some praise from critics for the action scenes and the verisimilitude of filming at sea.

Ultimately, it was labeled an ambitious misfire. Nevertheless, it opened at no. While its box office total managed to exceed its total spend, the standard threshold for a film to break even is normally twice its budget, though this can rise to three times its budget or more depending on the percentage take between a theater and the studio, which varies from territory to territory.

Even today though, people think Waterworld bombed. It certainly comes up regularly in lists of supposed box office bombs. In fact, it made a decent return in the end. Firstly, it took good money at the box office.

Ad — content continues below. Then, it proved to be a hit on video, across rental and sales. Then the television rights came into play.