How Kevin Costner Battled Storms, Set Disasters and Studio Drama to Bring ‘Waterworld’ to Life

“Waterworld” is a 1995 post-apocalyptic film starring Kevin Costner that drowned in a tidal wave of expensive filmmaking.

The flick is set in the year 2500. The polar ice caps have melted and sea levels have risen to cover nearly all the land on Earth.

Costner, who also produced the film, plays the Mariner, a mutant drifter with webbed feet and gills, who sails the world on his trimaran searching for the fabled Dryland and confronts a pirate gang called the Smokers, led by bad guy Deacon, played by Dennis Hopper.

Jeanne Tripplehorn plays Helen, a woman who ends up traveling with the Mariner with her young charge Enola, played by Tina Majorino.

As well as battling the Smokers at sea, Costner was constantly in conflict with the film’s director, Kevin Reynolds, who eventually became so fed up that he left the film before it was done. Costner, who sank a reported $22 million of his own money into the production, finished the editing himself.

Peeved Reynolds said, “Kevin Costner should only star in movies he directs. That way, he can work with his favorite actor and favorite director.”

But he wasn’t mad forever because the twosome reunited almost two decades later for the History Channel miniseries “Hatfields & McCoys.”

Famed surfer Laird Hamilton was Costner’s double on several stunts and was once washed out to sea during a violent squall along with a slew of extras who nearly drowned. Seasickness plagued the cast and crew during filming, which was done primarily in Hawaii.

Stunt coordinator Norman Howell suffered from compression sickness while shooting underwater and had to be flown by helicopter to a Honolulu hospital. He was back at work a few days later.

On the first day of filming, Tripplehorn and Majorino nearly drowned when a trimaran sank, while Costner was tied to the mast when the boat was once caught in a dangerous storm. Barefoot the whole time, Costner wore moleskin attached to the soles of his feet as protection against sharp objects and edges — but it didn’t help when he almost drowned!

The massive floating atoll set cost a cool $22 million, was a quarter of a mile in circumference, and weighed more than 2.2 million pounds. Incredibly, neither the football stadium-sized set nor the 30 or so boats needed for lighting, makeup, cameras, catering and costumes had lavatories! Filming had to stop while people were taken to a barge anchored near the shore to use the bathroom.

The set used up all available steel in Hawaii and more had to be flown in from California. Kona Airport had to extend a runway by a quarter mile to allow heavy planes to land.

“Waterworld” was plagued by strong winds and rain, and a hurricane caused millions in damage to the set. The crew had advance warning as Costner talked to Steven Spielberg about the problems he had filming “Jaws” — and Spielberg warned them about shooting on open water.

However, filming at sea had one interesting turn — Costner made friends with a bottlenose dolphin he called “Noodle” and fed the friendly guy shrimp from craft services.

At the time, “Waterworld” was the most expensive movie ever made. It was green-lighted by Universal for $100 million, but the cost soared to $175 million due to inclement weather, destroyed sets, rewrites and shooting in a large water enclosure on elaborate floating sets off the coast of Hawaii.

With the final cost topping a whopping $235 million, “Waterworld” took in $264 million at the box office, about half of which went to the theaters. It took years to become profitable and critics dubbed it “Fishtar” and “Kevin’s Gate,” in reference to earlier film flops “Ishtar” and “Heaven’s Gate.”

“Waterworld” was nominated for one Academy Award, for Best Sound, but lost out to “Apollo 13.”

Costner likes the movie, noting, “It stands up as a really exotic, cool movie. I mean, it was flawed, for sure. But, overall, it’s a very inventive, cool movie. It’s pretty robust.”