Kevin Costner Defends 'Waterworld': 'It’s Beloved Around the World'

Last month, the 20th anniversary of the 1995 aqua-epic Waterworld came and went with little fanfare. Outside of a special edition Blu-ray and a few retrospective essays — including one here at Yahoo Movies — one of the most infamous summer movies of all time went mostly ignored at its two-decade mark.

Now, Waterworld star Costner has broken his silence on the movie, which nearly drowned in bad buzz, thanks in part to a disastrous sea-faring shoot. In a brief text-message exchange with the blogger Jeffrey Wells — who apologized to the star for having helped sink the film upon its release in 1995 — Costner maintained that Waterworld was far more successful and well-received than most people think.

“I’m not sure you know how hard people work [on films]. I’m not sure you know how beloved the movie is around the world,” Costner said about Waterworld, a dystopian sci-fi flick that made $264 million on a then-record $180 million budget. “I know that people might think of Waterworld as a low point for me. It wasn’t … The movie with all its imperfections was a joy for me.”

The actor has spoken about Waterworld only sparingly over the last two decades, each time defending its merits while acknowledging that the film was not perfect.

“It stands up as a really exotic, cool movie,” Costner told The Huffington Post in 2013. “I mean, it was flawed – for sure. But, overall, it’s a very inventive, cool movie. It’s pretty robust.”

Critics seem to be easing up and agreeing with Costner more and more these days, after he’s spent so many years swimming against the Waterworld tide.