Even today though, people think Waterworld bombed. It certainly comes up regularly in lists of supposed box office bombs. Firstly, it took good money at the box office. Whilst the $175m negative cost was presumably matched by a good $70-odd million of marketing, the box office returns weren’t bad. Waterworld took $264m in cinemas alone, and whilst Universal Pictures would have done well to see half of that, it certainly made a massive dent in the production budget. Then, it proved to be a hit on video, across rental and sales. Then the television rights came into play. Waterworld, as it turned out, broke even relatively quickly. It continues to be a money maker, albeit a modest one, for Universal, given that it’s since popped up on DVD and Blu-ray, and continues to get pickup via viewing services and ongoing TV rights. But then there’s the other reason why Waterworld‘s red ink was never much of a problem, even while it existed. And that’s accounting. This is rarely talked about, but at the time that Waterworld was in production, and running heavily over budget, Universal Studios was in the process of being sold. Parent company MCA Inc was bought by the Seagram Company just after Waterworld wrapped production. Well, it bought 80% of it, but that gave it control of Universal. Bottom line: even without the accounting work, Waterworld would have turned a modest profit for Universal. With it? It turned a big one. Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter for all news updates related to the world of geek. And Google+, if that’s your thing!
