The incredible opportunity Kevin Costner wasted to be in ‘Waterworld’
The biggest and most bankable stars in Hollywood regularly get offered roles in the biggest and most bankable project, a reality which led Kevin Costner to make a string of decisions that inadvertently caused his career to stagnate.
Throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s, his star shone brighter than most on either side of the camera, with his directorial debut Dances with Wolves winning seven Academy Awards, including ‘Best Picture’ and ‘Best Director’, but he was already an A-list mainstay before that and continued to be one afterwards.
The Untouchables, No Way Out, Bull Durham, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, JFK, and The Bodyguard were all runaway success stories, and at the time, it seemed as though Costner could do no wrong. However, making a pair of ambitious and effects-heavy blockbusters back-to-back proved to be his undoing, with the underwhelming Waterworld and dismal self-indulgent stylings of The Postman doing so much damage to his standing within the industry that it took him decades to recover.
In the case of the latter, Costner rejected the screenplay for Air Force One despite the action movie being penned specifically for him, which saw Harrison Ford drafted in to headline what became the highest-grossing hit of his career where he wasn’t playing either Han Solo or Indiana Jones. Turning down Oliver Stone’s Platoon also proved to be a sore one, but missing out on The Shawshank Redemption was something else entirely.
It may have failed to perform in line with expectations at the box office, but Frank Darabont’s Stephen King adaptation evolved to become one of the most beloved films in history, one that’s enthralled every subsequent generation since. There are few cinematic stories held in such high esteem as The Shawshank Redemption, which could have starred Costner were it not for his commitments to Waterworld.
Instead of anchoring an all-time classic that’s maintained a cast-iron grip on its status as one of Hollywood’s most enduring, eminently quotable, and emotionally-driven classics, he persevered with a post-apocalyptic disappointment that went massively over-budget, painstakingly behind schedule, fractured his friendship with regular collaborator Kevin Reynolds after they repeatedly butted heads on set, and then failed to turn a single penny of profit during its theatrical run.
It should at least be noted that Waterworld ended up in the black eventually, thanks to home video sales, TV syndication rights, and the long-running theme park attraction bearing its name, but at the time, the industry’s first-ever $175 million production hardly did a stellar job of justifying the exorbitant expense.
The aquatic anomaly dealt a huge blow to Costner’s reputation, matters that were only compounded by the abject failure of The Postman. That’s not to say being unable to commit to The Shawshank Redemption incited the domino effect that gradually saw him slipping down the ladder in the years to come, but on the other hand, it could have been avoided were he to give Andy Dufresne priority over The Mariner, a choice that’s easy to make in hindsight.
