Most individuals will level to Waterworld when requested to determine Kevin Costner’s greatest field workplace flop. These individuals are not essentially unsuitable, both. The 1995 waterlogged catastrophe price $175 million to make. That is greater than the annual GDP for lots of nations. And although is did earn $264 million, it’s extensively thought of a missed alternative on behalf of the Yellowstone actor. However there may be one other 90s movie that Costner made and really footed the invoice for simply two years later that’s by all accounts an excellent larger flop than Waterworld. We’re speaking in regards to the doomed The Postman returned solely $20 million on a finances of greater than $85 million, an excellent portion of which got here out of Costner’s personal pockets. So what within the “waterworld” occurred to this David Brin novel adaptation of a mailman on horseback who rides within the huge Northwestern portion of america in a dystopian, post-apocalyptic society? And why did the star determine to make use of his personal cash to get the manufacturing to the end line?
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Costner Has At all times Invested in His Personal Initiatives
A lot is made out of Costner placing up his personal cash for The Postman as a result of the movie did so badly in theaters and was extensively panned by each critics and audiences alike. However Costner has additionally picked up the tab for a few of his extra profitable films as properly. For his triumphant 1990 western epic Dances with Wolves, the star invested $3 million out of his personal pocket and was rewarded with an Academy Award for Finest Image. He additionally invested greater than $9 million in Black or White, a 2014 movie that starred Costner, Octavia Spencer, and Anthony Mackie. You will not hear a lot about that both because the movie greater than doubled its funding making over $21 million on the money that the actor put into the movie. The explanation such a stink is raised about his monetary backing of The Postman is that it was an enormous venture and was additionally approaching the heels of one other huge bomb in Waterworld.
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So What Went Mistaken With ‘The Postman’?
There are many causes to pile on The Postman, from the extreme runtime of over three hours to the portentousness of its lead, director, and likewise producer, Costner. However other than being a nasty funding, there’s something in regards to the movie that does not ring true. It’s set in 2013 and what’s left of society has been separated into small hamlets of survivors who combat one another for the scraps of a as soon as vibrant civilization. It was Kevin Costner in one other apocalyptic setting, solely this time he is not surrounded by water, however by miles and miles of landlocked, dusty flatlands. The star went from Waterworld on to “Dirtworld” with out passing “Go” and undoubtedly with out accumulating $200.
The perfect dialogue within the movie is within the opening scenes between Costner and his horse, “Invoice.” That ought to inform you all you should know in regards to the screenplay. It seems as if Costner is attempting like hell to emulate Cervantes’ Don Quixote and discover the magic he had unearthed some seven years prior with the legendary Dances with Wolves, however with out the earnestness of the Oscar-winning saga. Will Patton, a terrific actor who additionally appeared with Costner 10 years prior within the Chilly Conflict spy thriller, No Manner Out, has the misfortune of enjoying Common Bethlehem, Costner’s nemesis. Common Bethlehem and his males additionally occur to be ruthless racists and misogynists in an period that also allowed such characters to look on the display and say sure dangerous phrases. Then Costner begins quoting William Shakespeare, and it simply retains going downhill from there. These are all issues you possibly can collect from watching the primary half-hour of the movie.
Someway Costner additionally managed to wrangle the good Tom Petty into making a cameo and unnecessarily besmirched the rock icon’s legacy within the means of all this.
What Was Costner Pondering (and Spending)?
Picture by way of Amazon
Within the opening scenes, we see Costner touring alone within the huge expanses of the Nice Salt Flats in Utah and speaking to his horse. This results in possibly the essential query and general metaphor of the venture. Was he genuinely lonely and in search of one thing to maintain him sane, or does Costner simply actually like to listen to his personal voice? The larger query is, when did this unhealthy movie cease being about telling a compelling story, and turn into an ego entice and Costner’s private cash pit? Possibly he had sunk a lot cash into the venture by the point they really bought to capturing the principal pictures, that there was no turning again for The Postman. It is no secret that Costner shouldn’t be probably the most modest man to ever make his personal movies, however how may he probably have thought that this is able to work out properly for him?
Idiot me as soon as (Waterworld) disgrace on you. Idiot me twice (The Postman) disgrace on me. There’s loads of disgrace to go round, however we actually do not assume the newly topped king of the fashionable Western cares a technique or one other. So long as he is in a position to transfer on to the following venture. And although we could not observe down a precise determine for what Costner spent on The Postman, no matter revenue he had created from all his good work in The Untouchables, Discipline of Goals, The Bodyguard, and Dances with Wolves needed to be gone by the point he was accomplished footing a lot of the invoice for this $20 million mess. His Everyman Ray Kinsella character from Discipline of Goals simply wasn’t going to fly in a hardscrabble, lawless frontier. You are not within the corn fields anymore, Kevin, and the New World Order can’t be settled by two middle-aged white males grappling with one another like highschool wrestlers.
Did He Be taught from this Fiasco?
After a nightmarish finish to the millennium that noticed Costner fall from the ranks of A-list, bona fide, show-up-and-shoot moneymakers to an actor that was approaching dreaded “has been” standing, you’ll assume he would keep away from any extra cash vacuums. For probably the most half, he has. Within the twenty first century, he has produced seven extra movies. All of them have obtained combined to good opinions, significantly 2003’s Open Vary, a Yellowstone-like western yarn that made greater than a 300% revenue from its $20 million finances. And the aforementioned Black or White that turned a tidy revenue on a small finances. In recent times, Costner has discovered his area of interest throughout the Western style with the critically acclaimed, Let Him Go in 2020 which he starred reverse Sissy Spacek, and now the Paramount tv blockbuster Yellowstone beneath the regular hand of creator Taylor Sheridan. Costner can also be set to supply, direct, and star in one other Western, Horizon, within the spring of this yr. He’ll share the display with Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Luke Wilson, and Thomas Haden Church. However honest warning! Common Bethlehem — Will Patton — can also be set to pal up with Costner within the new movie, too. This time the pairing feels extra proper than it’s in The Postman.