Kevin Costner’s Huge Flop Cost Him A Role In One Of The Best Movies Ever Made

The choices made by actors that lead them to devote years to each project they sign onto can sometimes be the difference between a long and successful career or a short one. Significant paydays, sometimes reaching millions of dollars, just add to the pressure actors face to make the right decision. As reported by The Things, Kevin Costner made the wrong choice back in the early ’90s, choosing Waterworld over The Shawshank Redemption.

In the early ’90s, Kevin Costner was a star on the rise following the success of Dances With Wolves, The Bodyguard, and the best Robin Hood movie ever made, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, so with the eyes of the world watching, Waterworld was selected as his next big film. Costner felt that the sci-fi dystopian film was better than The Shawshank Redemption, turning down the lead role of Andy Dufresne.