( Water ) World Build ing

Few one- off movies do as good a job of world building as Waterworld, which establishes a Planet Earth, circa 2500, in which the polar ice caps have melted, and the sea now covers almost all of the land. Twenty years later, we’re unlikely to ever get a sequel to the movie, but fans can flesh out the universe if they so wish. A tie- in novel provides a bit more detail about the world, while a four- issue 1997 comic book sequel does exist, titled Waterworld: Children Of Leviathan. Kevin Costner didn’t permit the artist to use his likeness, which explains why the Mariner undergoes a facelift between stories.