Why Kevin Costner’s ‘Horizon’ Movies Are Being Released Just Two Months Apart

Kevin Costner’s Horizon is finally, well, on the horizon.

On Oct. 5, Warner Bros. put the actor-director’s Western epic (brief teaser trailer below) on its schedule, announcing the first film in the planned four-part project — Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 — will arrive in theaters June 28, with the second coming out two months later, on Aug. 16. The third film, currently undated, is expected to start production after the SAG-AFTRA strike is resolved. The decision comes as Costner exits his other Western, Paramount’s Yellowstone, amid some O.K. Corral-level hostilities among him, the studio and showrunner Taylor Sheridan.

The back-to-back Horizon release strategy is bold, and virtually unprecedented, for a major Hollywood title. Warner Bros. sources point to Clint Eastwood’s 2006 World War II films, Flags of Our Fathers and Letters From Iwo Jima, as an example: They were released about two months apart (though, unlike the Horizon movies, Letters wasn’t a direct sequel to Flags). And Costner would likely view Flags’ $33 million domestic gross (about $50 million in today’s dollars) as a disappointment, given Yellowstone has been a TV ratings blockbuster. 

Moreover, executives believe the unique rollout will make the pictures feel more like an event that can break through the clutter and excite audiences — a logical assumption coming off the summer of the Barbenheimer phenomenon.

The project’s ambition naturally brings to mind Costner’s three-hour directorial debut, his 1990 Western epic, Dances With Wolves, which was doubted by the media (one industry insider famously predicted it was “Costner’s Folly”) but became a box office hit that won seven Oscars, including best picture. As with Wolves, Costner is betting the ranch, literally this time — he has said that he leveraged his Santa Barbara home to help finance the saga, which is produced by his Territory Pictures production company. In recent court documents for his divorce from Christine Baumgartner, Costner disclosed that he personally invested at least $20 million and deferred his fees.

Work on Horizon — co-written by Costner and Jon Baird (Filth, Tetris) — actually predates the release of Wolves; its origins reportedly go back to 1988, and Costner has been striving to get the project made since then (at one point, Horizon was set up at Disney).

The plot spans the four years of the Civil War and according to the official logline “explores the lure of the Old West and how it was won — and lost — through the blood, sweat and tears of many.” The films, to be shot in Utah, are said to include more than 170 speaking roles and co-star Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington and Michael Rooker. Costner has said the saga’s total runtime will be about 11 hours.

Despite the 35-year development timeline, surprisingly few specifics have been made public about Costner’s character or the story. Yet Costner has let bits and pieces slip in past interviews.

In 2003, he noted Horizon was “faster paced and has a younger cast” than the most recent Western he directed, Open Range (which grossed $58 million domestically that year, or about $96 million today), and described it as “one of those marquee types like the Magnificent Seven.” And, in 2016, “It’s just a story about how towns came to be in the West … It debunks [myths] about things.” And then, in 2022, “It involves women trying to get by in a world that was impossibly tough.”