The encyclopedia · Product & Design · Product decision · 1995–1998
The Postman: Costner's $80M epic that lost $62M
Kevin Costner's three-hour post-apocalyptic epic cost $80M, grossed about $30M worldwide, and won all five Golden Raspberry Awards it was nominated for.
Tig Productions · Warner Bros. · 1997-12-25
What happened
The Postman was Kevin Costner's follow-up to the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves, a three-hour post-apocalyptic epic he directed, produced and starred in. Tig Productions and Warner Bros. backed it with an $80 million budget.
Costner positioned it as a hopeful story about America rebuilding after a war, but critics hated it — 14% on Rotten Tomatoes and a 29/100 on Metacritic. It won all five Golden Raspberry Awards it was nominated for, including Worst Picture.
Released December 25, 1997, it grossed about $30 million worldwide ($17 million in the US) against its budget. MovieWeb estimated the loss at over $62 million, one of the biggest box-office flops of the 1990s, and the film nearly derailed Costner's career.
Why it happened
- An $80M epic was greenlit on the director-star's Oscar pedigree, not the script — a three-hour, self-indulgent tale that audiences and critics (14% RT) rejected.
- Costner's mid-1990s ego priced a niche post-apocalyptic story as a tentpole, and the Christmas release could not recover the budget — gross of $30M against an $80M spend.
- The film's length and self-serious tone scared off the blockbuster audience it needed, so one man's passion project became a near career-ending loss.
The lesson
A director's Oscar pedigree does not make a passion project bankable: $80M on a three-hour post-apocalyptic epic returned $30M, won five Razzies, and nearly ended the career that authorized it.
Sources
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