“Kevin Costner’s Brave Pursuit: The Risks Behind ‘Horizon'”
In the late ’80s, Kevin Costner made what many considered a risky career move. He declined the lead role of Jack Ryan in The Hunt for Red October—along with “more money than I had ever seen,” as he told GQ—to direct and star in Dances With Wolves, an ambitious Western that studios were hesitant to produce. Despite it being his directorial debut, the film became a remarkable success, earning 12 Oscar nominations and winning seven, including Best Picture and Best Director for Costner, who triumphed over legends like Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. By investing $3 million of his own money to finish the film, Costner positioned himself as one of Hollywood’s most powerful figures, alongside Tom Cruise, with expectations of a $50 million back-end payout.
Now, at 69, Costner is taking another bold risk—this time raising the stakes significantly. He walked away from his $1 million-per-episode role in Yellowstone, the hit Paramount series that revitalized his career, and claims he will invest over $100 million of his own money into a four-film Western franchise that no studio was willing to finance, even as a standalone project. “I’ve mortgaged 10 acres on the water in Santa Barbara where I was going to build my last house,” Costner revealed to Deadline last month about his ambitious project, Horizon: An American Saga. “It has thrown my accountant into a fit. But it’s my life, and I believe in the idea and the story.”
Costner has envisioned some version of Horizon since 1988, even before Dances With Wolves debuted. Initially conceived as a single Western, the idea has evolved into a four-installment franchise with the help of screenwriter Jon Baird. When Costner humorously questioned the logic behind creating multiple films when no one wanted to make even one, he admitted, “I can’t defend that psyche.” He later shared with New Yorker editor David Remnick, “I scratch my head a little bit at my own behavior… I didn’t know it was going to translate into as much money.” Nonetheless, he refuses to compromise creatively. When studios criticized the scripts for being too lengthy (the first film runs three hours), too complicated due to subtitles, or too costly because of the need for period costumes and extensive location shoots in Utah, he stood his ground. “Ultimately, I just looked at the pile that I had, and I thought, Well, I’m not going to let that control me,” he explained to Remnick. “So I decided to put that at risk in order to make this.”
Costner cast himself alongside Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, and Jena Malone in this expansive saga set during the Civil War era. When Miller first received the scripts, she was initially confused by their length, thinking Costner was sending her a TV show. “It’s unheard of to set out to make four films unless it’s Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter,” she remarked to Vanity Fair. When Vanity Fair featured Costner on its cover in 1992, following the success of Dances With Wolves, his then-producing partner, Jim Wilson, noted, “Kevin doesn’t live by the rules. If there’s a rule to be broken, he likes to take that tack.”
Unsurprisingly, the rollout for these films is also unconventional. Warner Bros. is managing distribution and marketing, while Costner is personally funding the advertising. According to The New York Times, this arrangement means that if the films fail, the studio faces minimal financial risk, while Costner bears the brunt of the potential losses.
