‘Spielberg told us not to shoot on water’: how Waterworld almost sank Kevin Costner

• In April 2019, writer and filmmaker Peter Rader attended a round table at the United Nations headquarters. Rader was there, alongside architects, engineers and developers, to discuss the building of a prototype island city – a concept being quite literally floated as a solution to rising sea levels and overcrowded coastal cities. Rader recalls that hotshot Danish architect Bjarke Ingels led the discussion: “At the end of his presentation Bjarke said, ‘As you can see, this is very well thought-out plan… not a disaster like Kevin Costner’s Waterworld!’” Ingels didn’t realise that the next speaker was Rader – the original writer of Waterworld. “I had the joy of saying, ‘Hey Bjarke, when you threw mad shade on Kevin Costner, I bet you didn’t think the screenwriter would be called up next!'” laughs the writer today. Ingels was also wrong about Waterworld. Famed for being the most expensive film ever-turned-titanic flop, Waterworld wasn’t a box office disaster. (“And it was the most expensive film of all time for about five minutes,” says Rader.) Certainly, the film was a storm of production problems: at the mercy of the ocean, with an ever-escalating overspend and brutal treatment by the press. It was dubbed “Kevin’s Gate” and “Fishtar” – after notorious flops Heaven's Gate and Ishtar – before a single frame was screened. Waterworld grossed $264 million ("That's not chump change!" says Rader). For an indication of what the film means to Universal, the Waterworld stunt show has been packing crowds into theme parks around the world for 25 years.