Kevin Costner’s Horizon trailer reveals the epic he dropped Yellowstone for
Kevin Costner could have called it. Yellowstonethe neo-Western melodrama Paramount Network from TV expert Taylor Sheridan drive high in the ratings until 2023, and Costner had a strong platform in the lead role. But during negotiations for season 6, the 69-year-old actor walked away. He had other dreams: directing a four-part Western epic titled Horizon. Costner has blamed creative differences with Paramount and Sheridan for escalating tensions on American television Yellowstone set, but in the end, as he said a recent divorce proceeding, he left scheduling conflicts behind – with his own film. (The next time you don’t want to follow through on previously made plans, you can use the same excuse.)
We’ll soon see if the risk and subsequent Hollywood sensationalism pays off; Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 And Chapter 2 both will hit theaters this summer.
Like it Dancing with wolves or Open range, Horizon puts Costner back in the saddle as director and star. The first trailer for the double feature promises more of its specific Western mode: sweeping vistas, raw depictions of the West, sniper shootouts, contemplations on the nature of man and lots of horses. But Costner hopes the breadth of his story will provide a new perspective on the American West. Or at least the American western.
“We have a lot of Westerns that aren’t good because they become too simple, and Westerns are actually complicated,” Costner said at a trailer launch event earlier this month. The filmmaker embraces the man-comes-to-town formula of the West: “If it’s done right, we never forget it, but too often it’s just a convenience for a hero to be a dumb guy to take down.” But he plans Horizon go deeper. “This isn’t Disneyland. These were real lives. People who were just trying to get their way, women who were just trying to keep their families clean and fed – (they) basically worked themselves to death. Women’s lives were short, all they did was work. And so I’m drawn to that. I always go to my gunfight, but I’m drawn to the little things of what people had to go through.
The trailer in front Horizon is light on plot and heavy on cast, which according to previous reports includes 170 speaking roles. Costner leads the pack as the classic Western cowboy type, with Sam Worthington, Jenna Malone, Michael Rooker, Tatanka Means, Sienna Miller, Danny Huston, Luke Wilson and many more Those Guys filling the stable. Jamie Campbell Bower, who recently played Vecna Stranger things, loses the hellish makeup in favor of a 10-gallon hat as he plays the villain of the saga. And what unites them all, from indigenous peoples to longtime ranchers and a wave of newcomers to the West, are the fallout from the bloodiest conflict in the United States.
“The Civil War left a mark on our country,” Costner said. “Any way you look at it, the loss of life, the reason why it was fought (…) is something that we as a nation are still trying to come to terms with. But it shut down the West in an instant. The Civil War kept the country’s focus on the East Coast, but the moment the war ended in 1865, the country looked west again, and within 25 years, something that had existed there for thousands of years was gone.
“Our national desire was to be satisfied at the expense of those who had been there and prospered and lived their own way. And I don’t know if I’ve ever come to terms with that myself. I would say I’m ashamed of what happened. I don’t know if I’m embarrassed or ashamed, but I wanted to project what really happened. There was a great injustice in the West, but that doesn’t take away from the courage it took for my ancestors to actually break away and go there. I recognize the ingenuity and courage it took to leave and make this march across this country. It’s just a movie that shows the clash of cultures. It is our history.”
The big goal of the Horizon films was to dimension all sides of the conflict, which required him to produce a film that went far beyond the traditional scope of a two-hour Western. “I think sometimes it’s really a mistake to judge other people based on how they performed or acted in another century,” he says, highlighting how the film tells stories about post-traumatic stress, the strength it takes to conquer the West to establish, intertwined with each other. “the fact that native Indians were crushed under this movement.”
Costner’s great thesis about Manifest Destiny has been haunting his mind for centuries. Originally written under the title Sidewinder in 1988, the actor-director codenamed it Horizon as he spread it around Hollywood, feeling at the time that “people were copying his development projects.” Robin Hood Unpleasant Wyatt Earp. (That goes for his too serious beef compared to 1993 Tombstone.) Horizon started and stopped over the decades, with Disney almost producing the film, but Costner says he ultimately had to finance the film himself to realize his expansive vision. In 2023, reports circulated that the actor had done so mortgaged real estate to raise $100 million to film the first two chapters Horizon. He verified that number for today’s press and said it was all about authentic shooting in Utah locations.
Since Warner Bros. Pictures released two Matrix sequels within six months, a studio no longer broke distribution traditions in the manner planned for Costner’s saga. WB will once again be the risk takers and distribute Chapter 1 on June 28 and Chapter 2 on August 16. Whether we get it Chapter 3 And Chapter 4 probably depends on whether Costner can draw in his classic mode Yellowstone crowds – and all their friends, depending on the price tag – to theaters. At the very least, he thinks he’s made two movies for the whole family.
“I hope no one is put off by the R. Because I don’t make R (movies) unnecessary. I earn Rs for a 12 year old… If someone tells him, ‘This is going to be a bit difficult at some point, but I want you to see it. I want my little girl to see what their great-great-grandmother went through.” I hope a family will check it out.”