Rising Tide Universal Pictures’ Tab For Producing `Waterworld’ May Have Already Reached $150 Million

The trailers are already in movie theaters: Over a breathtaking panorama of a deeply turquoise Hawaiian sea, James Earl Jones ominously asks what would happen if the world were submerged beneath water.

CUT TO: Kevin Costner attempting to look noble with scraggly hair, gills and webbed feet. Faster editing quickens the pulse as nefarious power-ski invaders slice across the screen.

A climax finally is reached, and we learn the answer to Jones’ question: It’s Universal Pictures’ staggeringly expensive “Waterworld.” And Jones’ narration isn’t the only thing that’s ominous about this movie, the most expensive film ever made.

The question looming large these days is whether “Waterworld,” with a price tag said to be around $150 million and rising, will be the summer blockbuster Universal needs.

Will it follow in the aquatic footsteps of Universal’s other watery hit thriller, “Jaws”? Or will it take a dive like the studio’s “Junior”?

To break even, “Waterworld” must take in around $300 million at the domestic box office, according to Harold Vogel, entertainment analyst at Cowen and Co. in New York. How realistic is that?

“Not very likely,” Vogel said.

Smith Barney senior analyst Chuck Goto agrees.

Can “Waterworld” bring in $300 million?

“That sounds like a tall order to me,” Goto said.

Only two movies last year made $300 million or more: “Forrest Gump” and “The Lion King.” For a movie to be that popular, it practically has to add to the national lexicon, such as Gump’s “Life is like a box of chocolates” or E.T’s “Phone home.”

If nothing else, as “The Lion King” demonstrated, there needs to be a lot of spinoff games and cuddly stuffed animals kids will demand at the top of their Christmas lists.

Universal plans some licensing with “Waterworld,” but studio spokesman Bruce Feldman said less merchandising was planned than with the megahit “Jurassic Park” because the latter already was a best-selling book and hence better known.

“Waterworld” is not even in the can yet. Second-unit production, which covers shots that don’t include the movie’s stars, is continuing here while filmmakers wrap up in Los Angeles studios.

The production suffered an eleventh-hour setback when a 40-foot-high set piece, a “slave colony,” sank Jan. 27, further holding up the shooting schedule.

Just getting “Waterworld” this far has been a high-profile, high-seas adventure that probably has caused more than a few of its principal players to experience symptoms very much akin to seasickness.

Directed by Kevin Reynolds, whose only hit was “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “Waterworld” is a sort of soggy “Road Warrior.” It’s post-apocalyptic: The world’s icecaps have melted, flooding the Earth, and people have mutated into half-human, half-amphibian creatures.

To survive, a society scavenges floating debris and pieces it together to form an “atoll.” This becomes the centerpiece for a conflict between Costner and perpetual bad guy Dennis Hopper. The movie also co-stars Jeanne Tripplehorn and Tina Majorino.

In actuality, filmmakers used Lockheed-designed floating platforms lashed together to create the atoll, a 400-foot doughnut-shaped entity that sat in 90 feet of water about a quarter-mile off the Kona coast of Hawaii, the southern-most Hawaiian island. The set, with more than 1,000 tons of steel, had a scrappy, junkyard appearance; think of “Cats” meets “Mad Max.”

But since production began last June, the conflicts and problems haven’t been limited to the script, which wasn’t even finished as initial production began.

To begin with, a tentative production schedule that was to last 96 days ballooned to 150.

Crew members complained of “total chaos” on the set as well as a lack of management. Earlier in production, Assistant Director Alan Curtiss walked off the set, reportedly over creative differences.

Physical-effects designer Peter Chesney and effects liaison Kate Steinberg left “Waterworld” in August. The head of marine operations, Pat Curtin, also left in midproduction.

Then, there was an accident involving Costner’s stunt diver, who was injured while filming a scene and was flown to Honolulu for treatment of the bends.

“When I talked to those people over there, they’re pulling their hair out,” said John Naughton, Pacific Islands environmental coordinator with the National Marine Fisheries, which is monitoring the movie’s production.

“It’s just a nightmare of a situation - no end of problems,” he said.

Those involved in the making of “Waterworld” readily acknowledge that filming on the water made for mind-boggling logistics.

Many members of the 500-person crew had to be shuttled by boat back and forth to the set, and a flotilla of boats and extras on power-skis also required coordination. The shots on the floating platforms were difficult to line up, and the weather and the waves added another impossible variable.

“It’s never been done before - a movie of this size being filmed on the water,” Universal’s Feldman said. “We’re basically pioneering new ground.”

The problems of the pioneers, however, didn’t escape notice of the honchos back in Hollywood. In September, a delegation of high-level studio executives went to Hawaii to personally inspect the set.

The group included MCA President Sid Sheinberg, superagent Michael Ovitz, MCA motion picture Chairman Tom Pollock, Universal President Casey Silver and physical production chief Donna Smith.

Sheinberg told the Los Angeles Times he went primarily to make sure “everyone was pulling together in the same direction to get the picture made and that delays would be no greater than they had to be.”

“It could be the most difficult picture ever made,” he said.

“In retrospect, life would be a lot easier and, at a human level, a lot of people would sleep a lot better if they didn’t have `Waterworld’ to worry about,” Sheinberg said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal. “Whether we will make money or lose money, I don’t know. But I don’t think we’re sitting on a disaster.”

Some industry sources say the cost of “Waterworld,” originally budgeted at just under $100 million, could reach $175 million before all post-production costs are factored in. That’s more than enough to make “Jurassic Park” - twice.

If the film is a total bomb, could the red ink drown Universal?

“It’s not going to kill them,” said Smith Barney’s Goto, who monitors the dealings of Universal’s parent company, Matsushita. It would, however, create a “reasonably big dent,” he said.

It doesn’t help that Costner, whose salary for “Waterworld” is said to be $13 million, is coming off a string of box-office bombs. His most recent movie, “The War,” earned only $16 million during its entire run last fall, according to Exhibitor Relations Co.

To put that in prospective, “Dumb and Dumber” brought in nearly $80 million in its first four weeks.

Costner’s “Wyatt Earp” did a dismal $25 million at the box office to offset its reported cost of $70 million. Before that, “A Perfect World” brought in just $31 million.