Kevin Costner looks set to get back in the director’s saddle for the first time since 2003’s Open Range, with Deadline reporting that the Oscar-winning Dances with Wolves helmer is teaming with Warner Bros. for the western epic Horizon.
A longtime passion project of Costner’s, the film will “chronicle a multi-faceted, 15-year span of pre- and post-Civil War expansion and settlement of the American West. Experienced through the eyes of many, the epic journey is fraught with peril and intrigue from the constant onslaught of natural elements to the interactions with the Indigenous peoples who lived on the land and the determination and at many times ruthlessness of those who sought to settle it.”
Deadline quotes Warner Bros. Pictures chairman Toby Emmerich as stating that the studio jumped at the chance to “partner with Kevin on his long-awaited return to directing with this epic Western at Warner Bros and New Line. Kevin’s ambitious vision for this story is the perfect crystallization of his affinity for the American West and passion to bring this turning point in its history to life with all the human drama, cultural complexity and immense scope that it merits.”
“I’m thrilled to once again re-team with Toby Emmerich and the team at Warner Bros and New Line to bring the expansive story of Horizon, and America’s settlement of the West and all of the aspects that it entailed, to audiences,” added Costner.
Horizon will mark the fourth directorial offering from Yellowstone star Costner after 1990’s Dances with Wolves, 1997’s The Postman and 2003’s Open Range., and Warner Bros. is said to be looking at a late-summer production start.