Remember when Waterworld (1995) grossed $90 million at the box office on a budget of around $235 million, then eventually made back its budget on home video? If you don’t remember that, you may remember Kevin Costner having gills and drinking his own pee. We certainly can’t forget it, and neither have executives from the SyFy channel, apparently. Forbes reports SyFy would like to remake Waterworld. Somewhere, the agents of Treat Williams and Eric Roberts are feverishly rushing to set up a meeting with SyFy.
SyFy has had access to Universal’s catalog of intellectual property since NBC and Vivendi Universal Entertainment merged in 2004. SyFy has been trying to create their own film label for a couple of years, and SyFy network president Dave Howe says SyFy Films has been “actively developing scripts” with a focus on lower-budget productions. A Waterworld reboot might be their first attempt to create their own drinking game fodder rather than merely broadcasting it.
Howe sees [Waterworld] as an underexploited piece of intellectual property. That’s because every time it airs on Syfy, it attracts a surprisingly large viewership. (Around 400,000 viewers watched the last airing.) While a theatrical sequel of “Waterworld” was “never really on the cards,” according to Howe, a series inspired by the film is something that has been “talked about endlessly” and remains a possibility, he says. [Forbes via Bleeding Cool]
We’re sure it attracts a large viewership because people love the Waterworld universe and not because it’s a hilarious gem of mid-’90s weirdness starring Kevin Costner and Dennis Hopper. If Waterworld had also cast Nic Cage, the set would have imploded from too much combined gravatas.
Well, whatever SyFy does with it, we can be certain it will still be better than The Postman.
[Inset picture via TopatoCo]