Kevin Costner's Horizon Bombed At The Box Office – Here's Why It's Not Looking Good For Its Sequels
Kevin Costner's long-awaited Western epic "Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1" hit theaters this past weekend. This was a true passion project for the "Dances With Wolves" director, who put around $38 million of his own money, in addition to securing lots of other financing from mystery investors, to get the film made. It's the first in a planned four-film saga, with Warner Bros. set to release "Chapter 2" in mere weeks on August 16. Unfortunately, in the early going, this experiment has not panned out financially.
Opening against "A Quiet Place: Day One," the first installment in Costner's new franchise was buried. "Horizon" opened to a mere $11 million domestically, placing at number three on the charts for the weekend, scarcely above "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" ($10.3 million), which was in its fourth weekend of release. It certainly doesn't help that "Inside Out 2" has remained a juggernaut, passing $1 billion worldwide after pulling in $57.4 million on its third weekend. That left little room for this sprawling three-hour Western to find its audience. That's bad news, considering Costner is already gearing up for production on the third installment.
So what went wrong? Just how bad is this opening weekend? Is there any hope for the future of this franchise? We're going to go over what exactly went wrong with "Horizon: An American Saga" in the early going, from its outlandish budget to the impact that "Yellowstone" had on the project (good and bad), and why all of that doesn't bode well for the planned sequels. Let's get into it.
The budget was far too high
This is the easy one, but it's no less true: "Horizon" was just too damn expensive. According to a recent report from Variety, not only was the budget $100 million for "Chapter 1" alone, but Costner and his investors had to put up all of the marketing money themselves as well. Warner Bros. was merely on the hook for distribution, and the studio apparently didn't put up much of the money. If we're to assume the budget for the other three films is in a similar range, this is going to spiral out of control in a hurry.
A $100 million movie would probably need to make no less than $300 million worldwide to have a chance at eventually making money. That's now an impossibility for "Horizon," meaning that the film is going to be heavily relying on streaming, cable rights, and DVD/Blu-ray sales, which Costner recently championed as being far less dead than the industry might have you believe. Even so, that's an awful lot of bargain bin DVDs to sell to make up the difference. Someone, or several someones, are poised to lose a fortune here.
Westerns (and more broadly, originals) aren't doing well in theaters
One of Costner's biggest hurdles here is that Westerns simply aren't a big box office draw, for the most part. In my estimation, there are only two Westerns in the history of the genre that could have sustained a $100 million budget: Quentin Tarantino's "Django Unchained" ($449 million worldwide) and Costner's own Oscar-winning smash "Dances With Wolves" ($424 million worldwide). Beyond that, any other big-budget entry in the genre, from Disney's disastrous "The Lone Ranger" to Will Smith's notorious misfire "Wild Wild West," have all flopped. That may be depressing, but the realities of the business as it exists are what they are.
We've yet to see a Western do well in the pandemic era, and sure, the appeal of having Costner back behind the director's chair after all these years does bring a certain weight. But it's not a weight that can do enough to lift the tide high enough to make this movie, and the planned sequels, into hits. Unfortunately for Costner and his mysterious investors, it's not just limited to Westerns. This is a bigger problem that the industry has been contending with in recent years.
Original movies, regardless of the genre, are not breaking out on the blockbuster scale. Outside of the horror genre, which has delivered original massive hits like "Smile" and "M3GAN" in recent years, a hit not based on a pre-existing idea is hard to come by. The benefit horror has is that those movies can easily be made for $20 million or less. If Costner had made "Horizon" for "Open Range" money ($26 million budget/$68 million box office), we might be having a different discussion right now. Unfortunately, that's not the world we live in.
People don't seem to like multi-part movies
Even though it has been successful on several occasions in cinema history, generally speaking, audiences of today don't seem to enjoy the whole two-part (or more) movie thing. "Horizon" was very plainly billed as "Chapter 1," with potentially three more chapters on the way. To what degree it hurt the first entry's opening weekend is impossible to quantify, but it's certainly possible that the prospect of this being merely part of a largely story turned away some would-be viewers.
Nobody loves a cliffhanger. Yes, "Avengers: Infinity War" pulled it off, teeing up "Avengers: Endgame" to become one of the biggest movies of all time. But that was Marvel Studios at the height of its powers — and even Marvel renamed the films after initially announcing them as "Infinity War Part 1" and "Infinity War Part 2." Similarly, last year's "Across the Spider-Verse" dropped a "Part 1" from its title. Paramount also decided to rename the upcoming "Mission: Impossible 8" after originally titling it "Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part Two." 2021's "Dune" wasn't given a "Part One" subtitle, even though this year's "Dune: Part Two" was named as such. The list goes on.
It's evident that many in Hollywood now wish to avoid giving off the vibe that viewers are going to only get half of a movie. It's hard enough to get people to turn up to theaters these days, and this is just another potential barrier to entry — one that didn't help this movie's case any.
Reviews for Horizon were middling at best
Not that critics are the be all, end all for any film's fate, but having positive word of mouth never hurts. Unfortunately for "Horizon," critics were largely unkind to the first entry in Costner's franchise, with the film currently boasting a 41% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The audience rating on the platform is better at 71%, but that's not the kind of number we typically see with word-of-mouth hits that leg out after opening weekend. What's more, the sprawling Western also carries a very weak B- CinemaScore, which only further indicates that general audiences were pretty soft on this one.
That does not bode well for "Chapter 2," even if it does end up being a more satisfying cinematic experience. The weak response sort of ties back to the whole "half of a movie" issue. /Film's Jeremy Mathai called "Horizon" the most expensive trailer for a sequel ever made in his review. Whatever the case, there is little hope that positive word is going to spread in the coming weeks to help generate further interest in a franchise that is already too far along to pull the plug at this point.
The Yellowstone effect
Long before Kevin Costner starred in the hit TV show "Yellowstone," he was an icon of the Western genre. But Taylor Sheridan's beloved drama is one of the primary reasons that Costner is as relevant as he is in the modern era. That's undoubtedly how he was able to finally secure the financing to make his passion-project. But it also might be part of the reason that "Horizon" had a very limited appeal on opening weekend at the box office. In short? Audiences already have a sprawling Kevin Costner-fronted Western at home.
In the era of streaming and too much stuff to watch for any one person to handle, choices must be made. "Yellowstone" is readily available on streaming and many viewers have enjoyed their time with Costner on the show. So sure, maybe those same people would be interested in seeing him in a sprawling, Civil War-era film saga. But is it interesting enough to leave the house and spend the money on a ticket, not to mention concessions, especially since this is just the first part of a multi-film investment? It's a lot to ask. For as much as the show probably helped Costner get this movie made, it might have also hurt its prospects theatrically. Maybe Costner should try and cut a deal to return in the final few episodes of "Yellowstone" after all.
We spoke more about the film's box office performance (as well as several other topics) on today's episode of the /Film Daily podcast, which you can listen to below:
"Horizon: An American Saga — Chapter 1" is in theaters now.