Waterworld (film)

Beyond the horizon lies the secret to a new beginning

***Waterworld*** (also spelled **WaterWorld** and **Water World**) is a 1995 post-apocalyptic science fiction / fantasy action adventure film. Distributed by Universal Pictures, the film was directed by Kevin Reynolds and stars Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper.

The film would go on to form of the basis of a wider franchise.

## Writing

The franchise began with a film treatment written in the 1980s by Peter Rader, in the wake of the success of *Mad Max: The Road Warrior*, with Waterworld being a spec script pitched as "Mad Max at sea". The original title was "**The Tattoo of The Girl From Water's End**". If Rader's early scripts had been green-lit, the film would have surely been a hard R rating unlike the eventual film which was more family friendly.

After various studios rejected it for being too expensive and likely impossible to film, it was eventually picked up by Universal Studios

After various script touch-ups by David Twohy, Marc Norman and Joss Whedon, it eventually entered into pre-production.

## Cast

* Kevin Costner as The Mariner
* Dennis Hopper as The Deacon
* Jeanne Tripplehorn as Helen
* Tina Majorino as Enola
* Michael Jeter as Old Gregor
* R.D. Call as Enforcer
* Annie Costner as Dead Girl on Oasis Atoll

*to be completed*

## Crew

* Director: Kevin Reynolds
* Written by: Peter Rader
David Twohy
Joss Whedon (uncredited)
* Executive producers: John Davis
Ilona Herzberg
Jeffrey A. Mueller
Andrew Licht
Sid Sheinberg (uncredited)
* Producers: Kevin Costner
Charles Gordon
Lawrence Gordon
* Music by: James Newton Howard
Hans Zimmer (uncredited)
Mark Isham (uncredited)
* Editor: Peter Boyle
* Cinematography: Deam Semler
* Concept artist: Steve Burg
* Costume designer: John Bloomfield

*to be completed*

## Plot

*The following plot summary is the Ulysses cut of the film, the most complete version*.

### Prologue

The film begins with the Universal Pictures logo of a globe, which we then see slowly being covered by water as the oceans rise. A narration (by an uncredited Hal Douglas) then begins:

*The future. The polar ice caps have melted, covering the Earth with water. Those who survived have adapted, to a new world.*

The film then pans beneath the clouds and to the sea surface, revealing a sleek yet dilapidated racing yacht, ramshackle and clearly having being repaired many times, yet still fully functional: the trimaran. The owner of the boat is the unnamed protagonist, the Mariner (Kevin Costner). Our introduction to the Mariner is him urinating into a container, then putting the liquid through a contraption which filters it into clean water, and then drinking it again. He also spits some out into his lime tree plant to water it.

*to be completed*

### Theatrical version

When released in cinemas, the film had a a large amount of material cut from it. The theatrical cut is just over two hours long, whereas originally it would have been an hour longer. This was not only to bring it down to a cinema-friendly running time, but also to make it more family friendly and to cut out a lot of violence, swearing and sexual innuendo. However, the extensive editing caused some continuity errors by removing key scenes and lines of dialogue. Some of these were included in various DVD releases as deleted scenes in the special features.

### Television edit

The US TV edit was first aired by the ABC channel, which reinstated much - but not all - of the excised footage, making it around 40 minutes longer than the original theatrical version. For example, it included the ending where Helen and Enola discover the Mount Everest plaque at the top of Dryland, which was not shown in cinemas. However, the US TV edit still removed some scenes due to violence and swearing so that it could shown at an acceptable time of day on television. Conversely, it also removed some footage that had been shown in cinemas.

The US TV edit was released on home video in some areas as the 'Special Edition' or, incorrectly, as the 'Director's Cut'.

### Ulysses cut

In the early 2010s a bootlegged 'super-cut' emerged from Europe, collating all the footage and deleted scenes from all versions into one film. Its running time is just over three hours. This "Ulysses cut" was titled so after the name Helen gives the Mariner at the end in the extended cuts. The Ulysses cut was lauded by fans, and remains to date the most complete version of the film.

#### Arrow Films Blu-ray release

In early 2019, Arrow Films released a 3-disc boxset containing all three previous versions of the film - theatrical, extended and Ulysses cut, newly restored from original film elements to high definition (1080p) Blu-ray. This boxset contains new reversible artwork by Paul Shipper. It also features extensive special features, such as production, promotional and visual effects galleries, as well as three new documentaries:

• *Maelstrom: The Odyssey of Waterworld*, an all-new, feature-length making-of documentary including extensive cast and crew interviews and behind the scenes footage

• *Dances With Waves*, an original archival featurette capturing the film’s production

• *Global Warnings*, film critic Glenn Kenny explores the subgenre of ecologically themed end-of-the-world films

The boxset is also available as a smaller 2-disc set, containing just the theatrical cut and Ulysses cut, although the Ulysses cut does contain all the additional footage of the extended cut. The new documentaries are also included with the 2-disc set.

A further limited edition of the 3-disc boxset also contains a 60-page bound book featuring new writing on the film by David J. Moore and Daniel Griffith, archival articles, six collector’s postcards, and a double-sided fold-out poster.

## Box office

Waterworld, the most expensive film ever made at that time (until this record was broken by Titanic two years later) is often quoted as having being one of history's greatest box office bombs. However this is a misconception which arose from the largely negative press surrounding the film at the time during filming and upon release.

Whilst true that filming of Waterworld went well over budget, mostly due the complications of filming on water with no CGI, ultimately Universal Pictures did not make a loss. In fact it made a significant profit. The film ended up costing $175 million, but made back $90 million domestically, and $260 outside of the United States, not counting significant home video sales.

Director Kevin Reynolds has gone on record to say that negative press cost at least £50 million, not counting failures in the rushed and ill-planned marketing campaign.

The crew contacted journalist Michael Fleming to personally thank him, since he was the only journalist who reported that the film had actually made a profit, whilst all others were incorrectly claiming that the film had made a massive loss.

## Videos

### Trailers

Waterworld Original Film TrailerWaterworld Official Trailer -1 - Kevin Costner Movie (1995) HDWaterworld Trailer HDArrow Films Remaster Release Trailer
### Versions

THE ATOLL - My Waterworld Video CollectionA deep dive into the different versions and releases of the film by The Atoll YouTube channel
## References

1. ↑ Maelstrom: The Odyssey of Waterworld

## External links

* Waterworld article at Wikipedia
* Waterworld on IMDB
* Waterworld on RottenTomatoes
* Waterworld on Metacritic
* Waterworld on BoxOfficeMojo
* Waterworld at AllMovie