“Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon’ Falls Short of Expectations — and He’s Struggling with the News”
Kevin Costner made a significant gamble by investing $38 million of his own money into Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1, but the risk hasn’t paid off.
On July 10, New Line Cinema announced that the release of the second installment of this costly western epic would be postponed from its August premiere. The first chapter of the planned four-part franchise reportedly had a $100 million budget but earned only about $11 million domestically on its opening weekend, receiving poor reviews from critics.
Nicholas Barber criticized the film as a “three-hour slog … full of stultifying slow dialogue scenes,” while Jordan Hoffman of Entertainment Weekly found it “dull as dirt.” Manohla Dargis of The New York Times remarked on the film’s lack of authenticity, noting the unrealistic portrayal of frontier life, with characters having immaculate appearances and no one knowing how to spit tobacco.
Although New Line Cinema claimed that the delay of the second film was to give audiences more time to discover the first one, Kevin Costner, at 69, is concerned that the sequel and the following installments may never be released. A source close to him revealed that he remains deeply invested in the project and is taking the disappointing news hard.
