10 Insane Things You Won’t Believe Movies Spent Money On
5. The Floating Set - Waterworld ($25,000,000)
Originally seen as one of Hollywood's biggest box office bombs (before DVD sales came along and saved it slightly), Waterworld was the most expensive movie ever made when it was released back in 1995.
Starring Kevin Costner as a unnamed drifter in a world where land has been submerged by water thanks to the melting of the polar ice caps, the film is a mostly hit-and-miss affair that fails to live up to its narrative potential.
The original cost of the movie was set at $100 million, though by the time it was finally completed this figure had inflated to $175 million. One of the most expensive aspects of the film came in the form of the set, an epic floating expanse where most of the movie was filmed off the cost of Hawaii. The floating set cost around $25 million, made up of steel and weighing over one thousand tons.
The film's budget wasn't helped by the costs of travel and the damage (and shut down) caused by a brief hurricane, but it's most definitely the set that made the biggest dent in one of Hollywood's most infamous costly endeavors.