Water World: The Sunken Truth
LOST AT SEA, FOUND IN THE DETAILS
“Do not shoot on water! You’ll need a couple of shots on water, so use the second unit for that. Do all of your coverage in a tank or a stage.” - Spielberg to Kevin Costner in pre-production
“Kevin should only star in movies he directs. That way he can work with his favorite actor and favorite director.” - Kevin Reynolds, Director of Waterworld
Everyone says Waterworld was a catastrophe. But like most Hollywood legends, the truth is much more interesting and while it got a lot of things wrong, it got some things right.
THINGS WENT WRONG BUT NOT THAT WRONG
Yes, the budget spiraled. Yes, the atoll drifted away. And yes, Kevin Costner almost got launched into the sun via parasail. But a lot of what you’ve heard? Never happened.
They spent $1.5 million to digitally fix Kevin Costner’s hairline.
This is frequently repeated online, especially in listicles and trivia sites. No verified source confirms the $1.5M figure—post-production touch-ups did occur, but they were not exclusively on his hair.
Tina Turner was offered the theme song. (Thunderdome Redux?)
This has popped up on trivia forums, but there are no reputable sources that confirm it.
Kevin Costner secretly directed the entire movie.
This comes from the real tension between Costner and director Kevin Reynolds. Reynolds did quit before the post-processing, but Costner only oversaw the completion.
The floating set completely sank into the ocean.
The massive atoll set broke apart and drifted, but it didn’t sink. The confusion stems from headlines about production delays caused by storm damage.
The movie was the biggest box office flop of all time.
A very common belief, especially in the ’90s. In reality, it recouped its budget and profited from both international and home video sales. The biggest Box office flop of all time? The 13th Warrior (1999).
BET YOU DIDN’T KNOW: When the film was released, it was actually No. 1 for two weeks. It grossed $88 million domestically and $176 million internationally.
The Universal Waterworld stunt show was shut down after a year.
100% false. The stunt show is a long-running hit, still going in multiple countries.
PLOTHOLES YOU CAN JUMP A JETSKI THROUGH
According to Wikipedia, while the film doesn't explicitly state a year, it is generally understood to take place in the year 2500 AD. The Waterworld novelization and tie-in comics suggest it’s been about 500 years since the flood, though that’s not canon in the film (others suggest 200 years)
The Tattoo
Enola has a tattoo on her back that her parents gave her as a baby, but kids grow rapidly, and any tattoo would be horribly stretched and resemble very little of what it was supposed to be.
Where are they getting cigarettes?
Tobacco crops would be long gone. Is there a floating Marlboro barge we didn’t see?
Where’s all this gasoline coming from?
They’ve got jet skis, speedboats, flamethrowers… all powered by what? The Exxon Valdez has a finite supply, and refining oil without infrastructure is kinda impossible.
BUT LET’S BREAK IT DOWN
The Exxon Valdez carried 1.48 million barrels of crude oil (62.16 million gallons)
Crude oil doesn’t turn 1:1 into gas. On average, approximately 45% of crude oil is converted into gasoline. The rest becomes diesel, jet fuel, lubricants, asphalt, and so on. 62.16 million gallons × 0.45 = 28 million gallons of gasoline.
Let’s assume a jet ski burns 10 gallons per hour, and the Smokers have a fleet of 50. So, 50 jet skis x 10 gallons per hour = 500 gallons per hour.
28,000,000 gallons ÷ 500 gal/hour = 56,000 operational hours which if run 24/7 is about 3.2 years of continuous use. More realistically: If they’re used 4 hours/day, then you’d get 13 years of fuel for 50 riders. But we aren’t even considering the flamethrowers!
Now we must ask does gas go bad? YES! Gasoline is a volatile, chemically delicate fuel. Unstabilized gas degrades in 3–6 months. With stabilizers and sealed storage, it may last 1–2 years. In a rusted hulk floating on the ocean? Weeks, Maybe?
Why is Dryland a secret?
It’s supposedly the top of Mt. Everest—which should be the one visible thing above sea level. They remember cigarettes but forget geography?
How Did The Mariner Defeat the Sea Beast?
Check out this ULTRA detailed breakdown
JACK BLACK SEAPLANE PILOT?
Jack Black was in the original theatrical cut of Waterworld… but blink and you’ll miss him. You see him midway through the film, flying the Deacon’s seaplane during the attack on the Mariner and Helen. He’s got aviator goggles, a headset, and a full handlebar mustache, making him almost unrecognizable. But there was more that was restored in the Ulysses Cut.
“There were days when it felt like you were part of a floating death trap.”
– Unnamed crew member, via Entertainment Weekly
STUNTS, SUNSCREEN & PRACTICAL EFFECTS
Forget green screens—Waterworld was made by flinging real people off exploding jet skis in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Nearly every action sequence was practical: real stunt drivers, real gasoline, real risk. The production hired dozens of top stunt performers, including veterans from Point Break and Mad Max, to launch themselves off ramps, zipline between boats, and flip vehicles in open water.
Kevin Costner even did some of his own stunts, including the infamous dive from a 40-foot mast—which reportedly took days to capture and left everyone sunburned and pissed off.
Enjoy a few days in the life of the stunt team for the film Waterworld (1995)
THE SHOW THAT REFUSED TO SINK
“Waterworld: A Live Sea War Spectacular” opened at Universal Studios Hollywood in 1995—before the movie even hit theaters—and it’s still running today, nearly 30 years later. It’s outlived the VHS era, Kevin Costner’s action career, and at least two Spider-Men.
YES, THERE ARE TOYS IN WATERWORLD…BUT NOT HELEN
In 1995, Waterworld hit theaters with a PG-13 rating, cigarettes, kidnapping, death, and a man who drinks his own filtered pee. So naturally… it got a full-blown kids’ toy line which only included The Mariner, Deacon, Enforcer, and Smoker figures
The toys repurposed molds from Hook and Jurassic Park, making Waterworld possibly the only franchise where Hook and a T-Rex could plausibly crash the set.
A Helen figure was prototyped but never released but we found one. Her absence says a lot about ’90s toy marketing, where women only existed if they could hold a missile launcher.
In a post-apocalyptic wasteland filled with jet skis and gill-men, the one thing they couldn’t mass-produce was a woman with agency.
WELCOME TO DRYLAND: THE PREMIERE
Brough out the BIG STARS
And the After Party didn’t sparte any Expense
“I’m not sure you know how beloved the movie is around the world…The movie with all its imperfections was a joy for me…a joy to look back upon and to have participated in.” - Kevin Costner
Waterworld was a mess—bloated, mocked, and soaked in bad press. But what it did well, it did better than most: wild practical stunts, massive sets, and a fully committed world. And while dozens of sleeker ’90s hits have sunk from memory, Waterworld is still floating.
Thank you for sharing my Waterworld data article (Mariner vs. Sea Beast)! This is cool!
My 90's memory is as hazy as everyone's at this point - but I recall Waterworld receiving the flop tag even before it was released, just like Gigli would a few years later, so it had the feeling it was doomed from the start, even if it was just a middling movie with a bloated budget. But I also recall The Postman being a bigger flop - just a huge stinker all around that no one saw.