Kevin Costner is no stranger to stakes. Nor is his colossal four-part passion project, Horizon: An American Saga, the first of which premiers later this month.
The film, which Costner wrote, directed, produced and stars in, has plenty of literal stakes. They keep tents upright, wagons hitched and flags flying. The opening shot even features a frontiersman hammering one into an anthill. But the two most vital stakes in Horizon are invisible: Costner’s reputation and wallet.
As the Western genre’s modern kingpin (winning a Golden Globe for best actor as John Dutton in the hit TV drama Yellowstone), Costner’s decision to bet an actual house on one super-series is as puzzling as it is impressive. Self-supporting a project of this scale is rare in Hollywood, but Costner was quick to dismiss the idea that the approach was intended to drum up extra hype for the films by showing audiences how much he cares about it.
“They just say, ‘Well, how did you get it made?’ My answer is I put up money myself,” Costner told The Dallas Morning News. “I’m not leading with that as a right hand.”
That amount of money and personal jeopardy begs two questions.
1) If not Costner, who is this for?
2) Will they bite?
Obsessed with the Wild West as it is, Texas is exactly the type of market Costner should want to corner. It’s a state with a deep personal history for him, too: Much of Yellowstone — a roaring financial triumph — was filmed here and its director Taylor Sheridan was born here. Costner earned a key to the city of Irving on June 11 for his representations of the American frontier in media. Most important to Costner, it’s a land where many people’s “great-grandparents may have come [through],” giving them an instant tie to Horizon’s “origin story of all the cities in America” that were once “just raw ground.”
But not every state is Texas and Horizon has plenty of uncertainty beyond financial woes that may deter audiences nationwide. These include a messy divorce from longtime partner Christine Baumgartner last year, in part due to the time Costner spent on set, and a controversial split from Yellowstone over contract disputes and conflicts with Horizon’s production.
Costner first conceptualized Horizon as a small-scale, one-part Western in 1988, but struggled to find enough investors to get it off the ground. He nearly agreed to a deal with Disney in 2003 but a $5 million budget difference killed the collaboration. Since then, Costner independently funneled $38 million of his own estate into Chapters 1 and 2, which began production in 2022. He mortgaged a 10-acre beachfront property in Southern California he bought for $28.5 million and withheld his own salary from the films. By the end of Chapter 4, Costner says he will have pumped more than $100 million into Horizon.
Another unorthodox strategy is the two-month release gap between Chapters 1 and 2. Since the success of the second almost entirely hinges on the first, that could be a $100 million fumble — the films’ combined production cost — if audiences aren’t hooked right away.
He told Deadline this all was admittedly “not the smartest move.”
It’s a unique philosophy for a blockbuster. Passion-project-over-profit doesn’t exactly scream financially sensible for a four-part, Lord-of-the-Rings-length cinema behemoth, but it’s never been about money for Costner.
“This is maybe the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my career, making these four movies, for a lot of reasons above and beyond even making the movies,” he said when asked how the film’s production, acting and writing process surprised him. “But those hats, every one of them, carry a weight, a level of responsibility such that even in my own life I can’t let go of the rope of Horizon.”
Costner doesn’t like most Westerns. The Wyatt Earp and Dances With Wolves star and producer thinks too many rely on spectacle and “twirling guns” instead of interesting characters and robust storylines. He says those two traits, set in the same marvelous landscapes as the Westerns of yesteryear, are what set Horizon apart.
Early reactions have been mixed. Some, like a crowd at the Cannes Film Festival in May, stayed to give Costner a seven-minute standing ovation for the film, while others quickly jumped on its runtime and complicated plot. Reviewers deemed it everything from a “numbingly long, incoherent disaster” to “Dune: Part One for Dads.” Early estimates from The Hollywood Reporter have opening weekend tracking at just $12 million, far below Horizon’s break-even pace.
“I know people will find this movie throughout its life,” Costner said when asked how box office performance affects his view of the film. “This movie is now going to live forever. It’s out there. And people either choose to find it or they won’t.”
Costner doesn’t know how to describe the way he feels about Horizon’s release. He’s just satisfied he’s “kept faith” with his vision, that he “didn’t back away from it.” And until its Friday premiere, it’s too early to tell whether Horizon is more Cannes or Rotten Tomatoes (where it has 41% approval from critics) for audiences. But like any business venture — which this is — people must buy in for it to work. Costner has invested every dollar he can to make that happen, but it’s out of his hands now.
Costner sees a parallel in his Horizon character, Hayes Ellison, in that way.
“I think Hayes and I are in the same boat,” Costner said. “I don’t know what’s in front of me. I just know that I’m going someplace.”
CORRECTION: 2 p.m., Jan. 13, 2024: An earlier version of this story incorrectly identified the name of Kevin Costner’s character in Yellowstone. The character’s name is John Dutton.
