Oh, to have the self-confidence of Kevin Costner.
Few actors in the final chapter of their career would turn down a steady salary of a million dollars per episode to pursue the vagaries of the Wild West. Yet few actors are as determined as Costner.
For the 69-year-old star and director, who has made a career by taking the path less traveled, has embarked on what many would call a reckless quest to turn his long history of post-Civil War colonization of the West into four cinema films. It’s a project he’s undertaking without real support from Hollywood: no traditional studio has wanted to finance his sprawling epic. And this comes at a very high personal cost, both financial, since Costner invested $38 million of his own money, and professionally, with his commitment to the films, causing a schism with the producers of “Yellowstone”, the franchise television show that revitalized his career. .
There is no guarantee that his vast experiment will succeed. “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1” is set to debut Friday. And in an unprecedented move, “Chapter 2” will hit theaters less than two months later, on August 16. Both features cost around $100 million. Warner Bros. releases the films in the United States, Canada and select international territories under a service agreement calling for Costner to pay marketing costs while collaborating with the studio on creating the marketing materials. (Warner Bros., according to a representative who was not authorized to speak on the record, has a small financial stake in the production of the first two films.) The structure of the deal means that if the films backfire , there will be little financial disadvantage. for the studio but a lot of risk for Costner himself.
But like he said, letting go was never an option. He first commissioned the script in 1988. He almost made it with Disney, but the two sides failed to agree on a budget and the film did not come to fruition. Then, instead of revamping one movie to fit the parameters of potential buyers, he and screenwriter Jon Baird turned it into four. To partly finance the films, he mortgaged a 10-acre piece of undeveloped coastline in Santa Barbara, which he has owned since 2006.
“It’s hard not to love myself anymore. I don’t do that,” he told reporters when his trailer first posted online in February, and added: “There’s a lot of people who know I’m a little harsh or something like that. When no one wanted to do the first one, I had the brilliant idea to do four. So I don’t know what’s wrong with me. (Costner declined to be interviewed for this story.)
Costner has dreamed of “Horizon” since his breakthrough role in “Silverado” in 1985. That was before Costner bet big on himself in “Dances with Wolves,” the 1990 epic he followed up with instead of the big payday he reportedly received for playing Jack Ryan in “The Hunt for Red October,” an offer he described to GQ magazine as “more money than he’d ever seen “. (The role went to Alec Baldwin.)
Instead, he bet $3 million of his own money on his ability to make a film about a Civil War soldier’s relationship with a group of the Lakota tribe, the film that grossed $424 million. dollars worldwide and won seven Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director. prices. Costner gave directing another shot in 1997 with “The Postman,” an R-rated post-apocalyptic drama that also involved an investment of his own funds. This film, which cost $80 million, only made $20 million at the box office and landed him in prison for many years.
And so did Costner, who continued to toil in Hollywood with varying degrees of success. In 2015, he also became personally involved in the drama “Black or White,” a film that the New York Times called “timid but honorable”; it grossed $21.7 million at the box office. Costner paid $9 million and starred in the film alongside Octavia Spencer.
But “Horizon” may be his biggest gamble yet.
The film was set to go into production as Costner’s star was rising again, this time to the top of Taylor Sheridan’s “Yellowstone” franchise: He was playing prickly patriarch John Dutton on TV’s most popular show. A sort of unicorn in itself, “Yellowstone” saw its audience grow over its last four and a half seasons on the Paramount network, and earned Costner his third Golden Globe. Yet that relationship has now ended because of a scheduling dispute between Costner and Sheridan, precisely because of the “Horizon” films.
Sheridan told The Hollywood Reporter that he was “disappointed” by Costner’s departure, adding that “it truncates closure for his character.” Paramount said in a statement: “While we had hoped to continue working with him, unfortunately we were unable to find a window that worked for him, all of the other talent, and our production needs in order to move forward together.” A source at the studio said Costner was offered a shortened schedule as well as a big salary, but he only responded with “unrealistic and ever-changing demands.”
A representative for Costner said he had no comment.
When the second half of Season 5 begins airing in November, Costner will not be part of the Dutton ensemble. He made it official in a video posted to Instagram on Friday, saying that during the “long year and a half” of working on “Horizon,” he realized he wouldn’t be able to continue with “Yellowstone ”, which he described. like “this beloved series that I love and know you love.”
Instead, he’ll be back in Utah, filming the third installment of “Horizon.” It’s unclear if he has the money to complete the film and if anyone will save it, especially if the first film isn’t successful at the box office.
“It’s one of those weird things where it’s not about the money, it’s about believing in your story and the movie you want to make,” said actor Danny Huston, who played alongside Costner in “Yellowstone” and was cast in the film. “Horizon” saga as a Civil War colonel. “But it’s a question of money,” he added with a laugh, “because the dream is rich.”
Costner debuted “Chapter 1” last month at Cannes, where it received a standing ovation. However, the critics were not kind during the initial reviews. Time magazine called it “curiously undistinguished.” The Hollywood Reporter called the nearly three-hour film a “clumsy slog,” noting the “uncomfortably long time” it takes to add context to the depiction of its few Native American characters.
The film is currently expected to release at $12 million, an inauspicious start for an expensive film, but Warner Bros. insiders say. believe that tracking services are not reaching Costner’s audience for these films, primarily older men living in the middle of the country.
Executives at the studio, which is selling tickets for the first two chapters at the same time, hope their marketing efforts will reach this audience, which doesn’t often show up at the cinema. And they’re counting on the extended return of “Yellowstone” to generate more interest in “Horizon.”
Huston, for his part, is excited about the prospect. “If it works, it will open up a very interesting world for filmmakers, because then we can make these sagas,” he said. “I believe it has all the sense of adventure, excitement and a visually epic quality that can entice audiences to see it, then see Chapter 2, then Chapter 3.”
Costner himself is undeterred.
“I’m heading west again, pushing a rock up to try to make the third,” he said at the caravan event. “I know I’m a bit of a joke, or maybe it’s humorous to even look at me because it’s like, ‘Whoa, I wonder when he’s ever going to stop digging.’
“I’m terribly satisfied in my own life that God allowed me to achieve these first two,” he added. “If I get hit by lightning, who knows what happens. At least I went west.