Horizon Risks Repeating Kevin Costner’s 30-Year-Old Western Nightmare (But This Will Be Even Worse)

Kevin Costner’s marathon Western movie series Horizon: An American Saga is off to a rough start thanks to some poor early reviews, which puts him on track to repeat one of the most infamous failures of his career. The sprawling Western adventure will weave together a series of interconnected stories across four movies, each theorized to run around three hours. Horizon: An American Saga – Part 1 will hit theaters on June 28th, 2024, with the immediate sequel set to release just a few weeks later on August 16th, 2024.

Unfortunately for Costner, who has a massive personal stake in the epic saga that has been his long-developing passion project, the box office prospects for Horizon look bleak if not outright disastrous. While the Academy Award winner is no stranger to box office flops, Costner is now in danger of repeating a particularly similar failure from 30 years ago if box office projections hold. Horizon’s failure may in fact surpass that earlier Western flop due to how much Costner has given up personally and professionally to will it into existence.

Horizon Could Be Another Expensive Western Box Office Failure Like Wyatt Earp

The 1994 epic didn’t even recoup its budget

While the sci-fi epic Waterworld may be his most famous box office bomb, Kevin Costner was also the driving force behind the lengthy 1994 biographical Western drama Wyatt Earp. Based on the real-life exploits of the eponymous U.S. Marshal, Wyatt Earp was released just a few months after the profitable and acclaimed ensemble Western classic Tombstone, which featured many of the exact same characters, settings, and events. While Tombstone nearly tripled its $25 million budget at the box office, Wyatt Earp managed just $56 million on a budget of $63 million.

Ironically, many of the reasons that reviews for Horizon: An American Saga are so bad were also prevalent in criticisms of Wyatt Earp. Primary among them was that the movie’s bloated 190-minute runtime obscured the better elements of the movie, such as the direction, cinematography, and acting. Horizon: An American Saga – Part 1 has a runtime of 181 minutes, with a similar runtime projected for the three subsequent parts of the story. All other criticisms aside, a traditional Western with a runtime like that stands little chance of box office viability.

Why Horizon Being A Box Office Bomb Will Be Worse For Costner Than Wyatt Earp

Costner’s personal and professional stakes are greater

While Wyatt Earp was critically panned and a failure at the box office, it did very little to dim Kevin Costner’s star power. He bounced back in the next few years with the classic sports movies Tin Cup and For Love of the Game, and he has remained one of Hollywood’s true A-listers in the last two decades. Horizon: An American Saga‘s failure would be even more disastrous for Costner than Wyatt Earp due to the damage it could do to him both personally and professionally.

Costner has famously invested millions of his own dollars into the project, even mortgaging coastal land that he owns to put the funds together to produce the first two parts of Horizon. A box office failure would be financially disastrous for the actor/director/producer, and could impact whether the final two parts of the saga can even be completed. Costner has already begun filming Part 3, which means even more money is going into the project before the first two parts have even hit theaters.

Additionally, Horizon‘s struggles make Costner’s exit from the hit drama Yellowstone look even worse. While it could have truly just been about his desire to pursue his passion project, the bevy of rumors about behind-the-scenes drama on the Taylor Sheridan show cast doubt and suspicion over Costner’s decision. The failure of Horizon: An American Saga after his abandonment of Yellowstone could be a black mark on the record of the Hollywood icon.

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1

Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is a Western film directed by Kevin Costner, and sees him in the starring role. The film explores multiple generations surrounding the expansion of the American West before and after the Civil War. Horizon is the first in a series of four films, all of which were greenlit by Warner Bros. Pictures.

Director

Kevin Costner

Release Date

June 28, 2024

Studio(s)

New Line Cinema , Territory Pictures

Distributor(s)

Warner Bros. Pictures

Writers

Jon Baird , Kevin Costner

Cast

Kevin Costner , Sienna Miller , Sam Worthington , Luke Wilson , Giovanni Ribisi , Thomas Haden Church , Jena Malone , Abbey Lee , Michael Rooker , Danny Huston , Isabelle Fuhrman , Jeff Fahey , Will Patton , Tatanka Means , Ella Hunt , Jamie Campbell Bower

Runtime

181 Minutes

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