Billy Oduory breaks down Kevin Costner’s upcoming passion project Horizon: An American Saga…
After the overwhelming success of Yellowstone, many actors would consider John Dutton their dream role, but not the Oscar-winning star who decided to leave the hit show midway through its fifth season for his passion project.
Kevin Costner came up with the idea of his upcoming four-part western series, Horizon: An American Saga, in 1988 and approached Disney for a partnership after his success with the 2003 film Open Range, but didn’t get a breakthrough until the summer of 2022 when Warner Bros agreed to partner with him on the project. Unfortunately, the partnership came while Costner was playing the fan-favorite Dutton Family patriarch in Yellowstone, so Costner decided to bet everything on his dream project.
Produced amid Costner’s exit from Yellowstone and his high-profile divorce after 18 years of marriage, Horizon grabbed the attention as it became the subject of some of the most interesting headlines in Hollywood history. While Yellowstone fans were disappointed by the news of Costner’s exit, many are also curious to know what the passion project that caused him to leave such a prestigious role is all about, so let’s delve into everything we know about Kevin Costner’s Horizon.
What is Kevin Costner’s Horizon about?
“Chronicles a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre-and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West,” reads the vague summary of Costner’s four-part western series. Details about what each film is about haven’t been released by Warner Bros, but the summary posted on IMDB and the details about the desert-like shooting set in Moab, Southern Utah, suggests that the film is set in the Wild West and covers life across the Frontier just like the Yellowstone prequel, 1883.
While explaining what Horizon is about in an interview in 2022, Costner said “It really involves a lot of women, to be honest. There are a lot of men in it, too, but the women are really strong in ‘Horizon.’ It’s just them trying to get by every day in a world that was impossibly tough. They were often [dragged] out to these places because that’s where the men wanted to go; women were following their men. They didn’t ask to be in these territories that were unsettled and dangerous, and life wasn’t easy. I’ve chosen to make sure that was really obvious, that that wasn’t easy, and how vulnerable people were.”
According to Costner, the four films will all be two hours and 45 minutes long and they tell the stories of these same characters as they grapple with life in the harsh settlements of the Wild West. His focus on the stories of the women suggests that his own character will not be the center of attention in Horizon as is the case in Yellowstone. Some sources also suggest that the story will tell the hardships of life for these characters in the Wild West from different perspectives.
Costner’s previous Western films always stood out for their intensity and the ruggedness with which they portray the reality of the American Frontier, so we believe Horizon will follow the same trend. Spanning 15 years of events around the American Civil War suggests that the series will also reveal how families are devastated by the Civil War, most likely in as intense details as Silverado and Costner’s other previous films.
On his directorial debut on Dances With Wolves, Kevin Costner won multiple Academy awards including Best Picture and Best Director, cementing his place as a legend of the Western genre. He put his money into most of the films he co-wrote and directed, so it wasn’t strange when he announced that he had taken out a mortgage on his beachfront property in Santa Barbara, California to fund up to half of Horizon’s rumored $100 million-per-film budget.
SEE ALSO: Yellowstone: What Happens to John Dutton in Season 5 Part 2? Fan Theories Explained
Who stars in Horizon: An American Saga?
Kevin Costner writes, directs, and also stars in Horizon: An America Saga, although there is no suggestion that he plays the lead role as is the case in Dances With Wolves, Silverado, and Yellowstone. As his own explanation suggests, women will be the primary focus of the plot in the series. Sam Worthington (Clash of the Titans), Sienna Miller (American Sniper), and Jena Malone (The Hunger Games) are the three names believed to be in the lead roles alongside Kevin Costner although the details about their characters are still unknown.
Kevin Costner is also joined by two of his Yellowstone co-stars Danny Huston (Dan Jenkins) and Will Patton (Garrett Randall) in supporting roles, but the details about their characters are also unknown. Horizon could still feature more members of the Yellowstone Universe because it was revealed that Costner would hire for up to 170 speaking roles throughout the four movies, and the Yellowstone Universe cast is a goldmine as far as people with experience in Westerns is concerned.
Other cast members in Horizon: An American Saga include Glynn Turman, Michael Angarano, Isabelle Fuhrman, Thomas Haden Church, Alejandro Edda, Michael Rooker, Tom Payne, Abbey Lee, Giovanni Rabisi, Dale Dickey, Jame Campbell Bower, Kathleen Quinlan (who plays Annie Pine), Luke Wilson and Jeff Fahey. Tatanka Means (Wind River: The Next Chapter) also plays a role in the series, most likely alongside other Native American actors in supporting roles to tell the Indian story.
When will Kevin Costner’s Horizon be released?
The first movie of Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga will be released theatrically on June 28, 2024, by Warner Bros. The second film, which also finished filming, will be released two months later on August 16, 2024. Costner’s unconventional release schedule raised eyebrows around his film series as he explained that all four movies would be released back to back, three months apart.
Costner, who waved his writer and director fees for the first two films, expected to release the third and fourth films shortly after the first two as well, but the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes led to delays in production, so there is no greenlight on those two. There have also been reports that Kevin Costner’s encountered funding difficulties for Chapters 3 and 4 of Horizon which means he might have to wait for the first two films to be released before going forward with the project.
SEE ALSO: Epic trailer for Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga teases how the West was won
Billy Oduory
