Kevin Costner’s over $100 million passion project, Horizon: An American Saga—Chapter One , tanked at the North American box office over the weekend. It’s bad news for the forthcoming three installments, the next of which hits theaters on August 16.
The first installment in the four-part series, which charts the peopling of the Americas over the 12 years encompassing the Civil War, cost around $100 million to produce and another $30 million to market. By his own admission, Costner mortgaged a prime piece of Santa Barbara property and put up nearly $50 million of his own money to get the film made, a feat he’s been trying to accomplish since 1988.
In its first four days, Horizon pulled in a measly $11 million at the box office . The film also rolled out in international markets, but those figures have yet to be made available.
Going into the weekend, it was tacit knowledge that Costner’s epic western would likely underperform. However, both Costner and distributor Warner Bros. were banking on the Yellowstone fanbase to turn out for the movie, so there was a small chance of an upset. Unfortunately, audiences and critics alike seemed to decide the movie just wasn’t worth seeing.
Many derided the unabashedly old-fashioned Western for its focus on setting up future installments rather than creating a self-contained film. Horizon ’s elliptical structure, which is little more than episodic vignettes sketching in characters we’ll presumably come to know, is far closer to a European art film than anything Costner’s American fans would be expecting to see in a splashy summer release.
While Horizon: Chapter Two is already slated for an August 16 theatrical release, it remains unclear what will become of the next two installments. Costner is already shooting the third, but the fate of the fourth is still up in the air. Equally unsure is whether the installments following Chapter Two will see a theatrical release or instead be sent to a streaming service.
It’s worth noting that, although Horizon ’s weekend gross was low, it held at solid numbers which indicates word of mouth was solid within its target demographic. It pulled in around $4 million on both Friday and Saturday, and nearly $3 million on Sunday. That’s a fairly tight hold for any film, though the real test will come this week.
If Horizon can keep drawing crowds over the July 4th holiday weekend, however minuscule they may be, it will indicate at least some sort of appetite for Costner’s passion project.
But no matter how it works out, Costner is undoubtedly smarting from his devotion to Horizon . His ambition to see the films made is largely seen as the cause for his departure from hit series Yellowstone . After almost a year of back and forth, Costner definitively announced on June 21 that he would not be returning to Taylor Sheridan’s acclaimed soap opera.
“I just want to reach out and let you know that after this long year and a half of working on Horizon and doing all the things that that’s required,” Costner said of his decision to leave. "And thinking about Yellowstone , that beloved series that I love, that I know you love. I just realized that I’m not going to be able to continue, season five or into the future.”
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