Kevin Costner has been defying the odds for over 40 years.
After filming numerous flashback scenes in 1983 The big thrillthe film that was poised to be his big break, he learned that it had been removed from the film entirely…but then the director of that film, Lawrence Kasdandecided to give him another chance, casting him in a plum role in 1985. Silveradowhich made him a star.
Soon after, as he was growing up, he was advised to avoid baseball movies because they rarely did well at the box office…but he then decided to make two within a year of each other in 1988. Bull Durham and the years 1989 Field of Dreamsand both turned out to be blockbusters.
More recently, after decades in the spotlight, his big screen career was in decline and he signed up to star in a television series that would air on a network that most Americans didn’t even know existed…but few time after its debut in 2018, became the biggest hit on television, Yellowstone.
It’s no wonder that Costner developed considerable confidence in himself.
But that confidence, in turn, led him to repeatedly violate Hollywood’s golden rule for movie stars: “Never, Never “Invest your own money in a film. »
The first film that Costner put his hand in his pocket for was Dance with Wolves, an epic western that arrived at a time when the genre had been considered dead. After reading the script, he set himself as producer and star, and sought a director and distributor. When potential partners argued for removing key scenes to reduce the film’s potential cost and runtime, and against having Native American characters speak in Lakota or Pawnee for a third of the film, which would require subtitles, he fired back. Ultimately, he took over directing the film himself and personally invested $3 million of its $19 million budget.
It was a crazy gamble, but one that paid off handsomely: the film, released in 1990, ultimately grossed $184 million worldwide (of which it would have pocketed $50 million) and won seven Oscars (including that of best film and best director for himself).
In hindsight, it could have been both the best And the worst thing that ever happened to Costner.
Emboldened by his success in gaming “the system,” Costner would, over the following decades, repeatedly put part of his fortune—or, as he called it, his “stack”—on the line in pursuing projects. that the system would bring into play. no support, with more or less success.
1995s Water worldwhich he produced, in which he acted and for which he fought, his friend of the time Kevin Reynolds directing, was the first film with a budget of over $100 million ($13 million for his salary), which immediately set a target for him. Its cost quickly climbed well beyond that amount, partly because of the obstacles of filming on water, which Steven Spielberg had learned about 20 years earlier Jaws.
When a hurricane hit the film’s Hawaii location, sinking the main set, Costner, whose reputation was on the line, decided to double down. Reports differ on the details: some say he invested $22 million of his own money to rebuild the submerged set; he acknowledged that he backed out of his final deal (which entitled him to 15 percent of all gross profits) in order to keep the film on track (because, he said, “I just didn’t want to be embarrassed when the movie came out”).
But the fact is that long before the film was finished, it was being derided in the press as “Kevin’s Gate,” “Fishtar,” and “Costner’s Waterloo.” It ultimately cost $175 million ($235 million if you include marketing and distribution costs) but grossed only $88 million. Costner often insists that the film “paid for itself many times over” when you factor in ancillary sales. In any case, it is unclear whether he personally got his money back.
Years later Dances with the wolvesCostner eventually returned to direct – in addition to taking on producing and acting responsibilities – on the 1997 dystopian sci-fi epic. The postman and another western, that of 2003 Open rangeAlthough details are unclear, it has been reported that Costner invested some of his own money in The postmanwhich had an $80 million budget but grossed only $17.6 million worldwide; and he took no salary for Open range (in favor of a back-end deal), which grossed $68.3 million worldwide on a $22 million budget.
Then, in 2014, he fell in love with Black or whitea screenplay about racial tensions in 21st century America written by Mike Binderwho had already directed him in 2005 in the underrated film The good side of angerand sought financing to make it with him as the lead. No one bit — Costner’s stock wasn’t particularly high at the moment — so he decided to foot the entire $9 million cost himself. The film ultimately grossed $21.8 million, so it’s almost certain that, in this case, he was cured.
In the meantime, Costner had also started investing money in things unrelated to film. When I sat down with him in 2014 to discuss Black or whitehe told me he also invested “about a million dollars” in financing The Explorers Guilda book in several parts with which he wrote Jon Baird and described as “perhaps one of the greatest novels of this century”. The first volume of the book was published the following year, and while there is no public information on its sales, we have yet to hear anything about a second volume.
He also told me about two “oil-water separator” companies he had acquired in the early 1990s and expanded over the years, investing a total of $35 million of his own money. It seemed rather unlikely, but in fact, following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, BP spent $52 million on Costner’s equipment.
And, during that conversation ten years ago, we also discussed the project that would ultimately become Horizonwhich Costner had been thinking about since 1988. He said at the time: “I have another Western that’s about 10 hours long. What am I supposed to do with that? I have a idea on what to do with it. You know, if I had the choice, it would be a real serial thing (in several parts). It would be released on Memorial Day (part one), Thanksgiving Day (part two), July 4 (part three), and then Christmas (part four) – four in an 18-month period. . I think that would be a very interesting way.
Sure enough, Horizon — which Costner co-wrote with the aforementioned Baird, and ultimately produced, directed, and stars in — ended as a four-part film series, with Chapter 1which hits theaters today, should be followed in just seven weeks, on August 16, by Chapter 2whether or not Chapter 1 performances or bombs (reviews and box office tracking have been pretty bleak), with chapter 3which is not yet fully funded but whose filming has already started, and Chapter 4 planned to follow as soon as possible.
If this seems like an unusual deployment plan, that’s because it is, and it’s at least part of the reason why funding for the Horizon The films don’t come from a major studio (Warner Bros.’ involvement is limited to distributing the film for a fee), but rather from Costner and a group of investors whose names he has not made public (and who may now wish he had opted for the increasingly popular format of a limited series on television).
At the Cannes Film Festival last month, where Chapter 1 had its world premiere, Costner was my guest in a live episode of The Hollywood ReporterIt is Discussion about rewards He said that to complete the project, he deferred his fees, mortgaged his Santa Barbara waterfront property and invested millions of his own money in the multi-part venture, which has so far cost $100 million dollars in total. He has since stated that the actual amount of his personal investment in the film is $38 million (GQ) or “well over fifty million” (The New Yorker). Whatever the exact figure, he clearly has a lot to lose.
“I’ve had the kind of success I couldn’t even dream of,” he told me in Cannes. “But I don’t want this pile of things that I have – whether it’s money or possessions – to be so important to me that I can’t think about what I want to do. I’m going to keep enough things for my family to be prosperous.(…)I would like to have money, I would like to have nice things, but I said to myself: “This will control me if I let it. » »
To laughter from the crowd, Costner – who renounced his involvement in Yellow stonefor which he was paid $1.3 million per episode, in order to focus on Horizonand who will be 70 in six months, then turned around and looked at his imaginary “pile,” saying, “Every time I look at this pile, I think, ‘Damn, I don’t want to lose you.’ Why am I so interested in this movie? » »
It reminds me of something else he told me in 2014: “I do so many entrepreneurial things in my life, and I sometimes look at the ceiling and wonder how far I’ve risked myself and my family.” He paused before adding, “But I’m really in love with the ‘what if?’”