Kevin Costner has released the first full trailer for Horizon: An American Saga, his hugely ambitious four-part post-Civil War Western epic that helped distract the actor from his other western, Paramount Network's Yellowstone.
The trailer (below) has a stirring, old-fashioned grandeur and is full of scenic vistas, gunfights, romance, wagon trains and a clash of civilizations between Calvary soldiers and indigenous peoples. “There is no army on this earth that can stop these wagons,” warns a character played by Danny Huston.
Costner co-wrote, directed and starred in the Horizon series. The first film hits theaters on June 28th, with the second chapter following just two months later. The second two films have not been shot yet. The film was a 30-year journey for Costner, who even took out a loan on his Santa Barbara home to help finance the film (Costner points out that the first two films were shot in Utah, where they were shot). , brought in $100 million).
“When no one wanted to do the first one, I had the bright idea of doing four,” Costner said dryly during a moderated discussion about the Horizon trailer. “So I don’t know what’s wrong with me. But I wanted it to be different from what we usually see in western films where there is a town that already exists. Nobody knows how [the town] developed. A guy coming down from the horizon, if you will. We don't know much about him, except that he has some skills he'd like to leave behind, and that in the end, this city desperately needs those stills… Too often, knocking down a stupid guy is just a convenience for the hero. “
He continued: “We have a lot of westerns that are also not good because they are simplified [but] This isn't Disneyland. These are real lives. People just making their way, women just trying to keep their families clean and fed… That's what attracts me. I'll always get to my shooting, but I'm drawn to the little things that people have had to endure. So for me, “Horizon” was worth holding on to because I just felt like I wanted to tell it. It grew and it grew and it grew until I suddenly realized that I just had to make it and that I had to take care of myself financially in order to make it – which isn't the smartest thing to do. But I trust the film speaks louder than anything I can say.”
Asked which was a bigger struggle, “Horizon” or producing his Oscar-winning “Dances with Wolves,” Costner said the new films – which he spent six years writing – were more difficult. “This is by far the biggest fight. I shot “Dances” in 106 days. I made the film you are watching in the year 52. I learned a lot and was able to use every trick to bring this film to an audience – and there are four of them.”
Much of the Horizon press centered on the film's influence on the actor's work on Paramount Network's Western hit Yellowstone. Costner was involved in a lengthy and messy split from the hit drama as he shifted his focus to Horizon films. The show's team complained that Costner had made himself less available to the series, while the actor's team blamed delays in Yellowstone's script. Either way, it's very unclear whether Costner will return to the show to complete the patriarch John Dutton storyline when the show eventually returns for the second half of its fifth season. Paramount has announced that these remaining episodes will conclude the series and then focus on releasing a Yellowstone sequel with a working title of 2024.
In the trailer, the film's color palette appears so bright that the footage almost looks like Technicolor – a contrast to the darker and grittier style that Westerns have largely followed since Clint Eastwood's 1992 classic Unforgiven. “I think that things that look classic don't go out of style [style]” says Costner. “I think they exist in every decade, and the opportunity we have in cinema is to create something that lasts… I don't tend to follow trends or [look at] what really works.”
Regarding the film's depiction of the clashes between white settlers and indigenous peoples, Costner said: “I'm ashamed of what happened – I don't know if I'm ashamed or embarrassed – but I want to portray, what really happened,” he said. “A great injustice has occurred in the West, but that does not diminish the courage it took for my ancestors to break away and go there. And I recognized the ingenuity and bravery it took to leave this land and make this march. It's simply a film that shows the class of cultures. It's our story. I love it. I can enjoy watching a film like this if I feel like I see myself in it, and I really tried to achieve that.”
Digging a little deeper into the theme of morality and the Old West – and tackling some potentially controversial topics – Costner added: “I think it's really a mistake to judge other people based on how they appear in another century or had to act.” In a way, we apply our own sensibilities as we live a life today in which, when we are offended, we have to call in a lawyer, an agent, or a publicity person—someone to settle our problems. Back then you had to solve your problems yourself – which was terribly dramatic, especially when you were dealing with a sociopath. You must understand that we have come through this terrible civil war. And if anyone believes in post-traumatic stress, there were only about 30 million people in America at the time and this war lasted four years. We lost 56,000 men in Vietnam. We lost 600,000 people in the civil war. People came west, sometimes with hope and bringing their families with them, but others came west because they were damaged and running from something.”
He continued: “The stranger was a boogyman. If you were a stranger 120 years ago, people were afraid of you because they didn't know if that was really your name or what you had really done. As the trailer says, if you were strong enough, if they were mean enough, they could hold on to something and take it away from you. And if you can create this architecture in a film where anything is possible, some people are lucky and some people are not lucky. And when they tried to look at their wife, she asked, “Why are we leaving here?” The man simply said, “We'll have better luck.” And so this land was settled and the Native Americans were destroyed by this movement. They had no chance.”
Horizon also stars Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Michael Rooker, Huston, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jeff Fahey, Will Patton, Tatanka Means, Owen Crow Shoe, Ella Hunt and Jamie Campbell Bower.
Costner produces with Howard Kaplan and Mark Gillard. The films come more than three decades after Costner won a directing Oscar for “Dances with Wolves,” which also won best picture.