10 Expensive Movies With Budgets That Spiralled Out Of Control

7. Waterworld (1995)

Given its reputation as one of the most nightmarish productions in history, its easy to forget that Waterworld was actually one of the ten highest-grossing movies of 1995, earning almost $265m at the box office. However, despite eventually breaking even thanks to home video sales and broadcasting deals, the post-apocalyptic sci-fi's original budget of $100m spiraled out of control and ultimately ended up costing another $75m, making it the most expensive movie ever made at the time. When it came to the production of Waterworld it seemed that everything that could go wrong, would go wrong. Star Kevin Costner spent an incredible 157 days working on the movie, even spending $22m of his own money in the process, while the massive 1000-ton floating set used up all of the available steel in Hawaii, even though the production designers forgot to add bathrooms for the cast and crew. Adverse weather saw the production shut down three times, several cast members nearly drowned and the script went through 36 drafts, with Joss Whedon flown out to the set for last-minute rewrites that he described as 'seven weeks of hell'. Thousands of costumes and dozens of vehicles were created at great cost, while Costner was treated to $4500 per night accomodation, much to the ire of the crew who were holed up in much less glamorous locations. Given the tales of excess and bad luck that have since become synonymous with the production of Waterworld, was it really worth it for such a mediocre movie?