Approval of God: Despite it being panned by critics and audiences, David Brinliked the movie, feeling it really captured the spirit of his book in spite of the changes. He had looked on in dismay while numerous scripts had changed the story's message completely, and was glad when Costner took over, rewriting it into one he liked.
Box Office Bomb: The film adaptation made $17,626,234 to its $80,000,000 budget.
Yes, I thought of playing the evil character Bethlehem. Then, I put on my producer’s hat and realised while it was a flashy role, it’d be a mistake for me, a disaster filmically. The only reason to play Bethlehem would be vanity.
In the script, the captured California postal carrier who gets the film's Wham Line is simply taken back to his cell after a shaken Bethlehem stops the execution. In the final film, Bethlehem shoots him in a rage.
In the script, one of the main letter carriers is one of the Benning gatekeepers, who survived the attack on the town. In the filmed version, his character is from Pineview, and it's never confirmed if anyone survived the sack of Benning.
Star-Derailing Role: The Postman was the third Kevin Costner-driven film of the 1990s to get nuked by critics and not do well at the box office after Wyatt Earp and Waterworld, and he never truly recovered from it, in acting or directing.
In earlier versions of the script, the dam settlement (the one with Tom Petty) was envisioned as a stand-in for the influential, but reluctant community, akin to the Sugarloaf Peak fortress of George Powhatan in the book. Over many following rewrites it was altered out of any recognition or bigger role in the plot.
Kevin Costner originally wanted to play General Bethlehem. He only changed his mind during the reading, realising how vain it would be for him to direct and play the bad guy (and his agent suggesting he should rather play the hero for image and marketing reasons, of course).
When Costner initially joined the project, he wanted to just adopt the book, as it is. Unfortunately, due to a copyright loophole, any possible adaptation was required by law to use elements of the specific script version from the late 80s, which was In Name Only. That's also from where Abby's expanded presence comes from.
The penultimate version of the script contains scenes of the Postman making a new Holnist creed, centered on mercy, but only after killing Bethlehemnote The Broken Aesop nature of it is why it got scrapped. It also has one of the Benning gatekeepers (who suffered from Uncertain Doom in the final cut) as one of his letter carriers, while the fate of Clarke, the Californian postman is left ambiguous.
The Postman won five Golden Raspberry Awards, for Worst Picture of 1997, with Costner also winning for Worst Actor and Worst Director, screenwriters Eric Roth and Brian Helgeland sharing Worst Screenplay, and songwriters Jeffrey Barr, Glenn Burke, John Coinman, Joe Flood, Blair Forward, Maria Machado, and Jono Manson sharing Worst Original Score.
, feeling it really captured the spirit of his book in spite of the changes. He had looked on in dismay while numerous scripts had changed the story's message completely, and was glad when Costner took over, rewriting it into one he liked.