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What’s at stake for Kevin Costner if ‘Horizon’ flops?
A huge amount of ink has been spilled in recent weeks about “Horizon: An American Saga,” the potentially ruinous three-hour dice roll that writer, producer, director, and star Kevin Costner It happens this weekend when the first of four planned films about the American West opens in theaters.
You’ve probably heard that the films — long-gestating passion projects from a film icon who in recent years has regained cultural relevance with the hit “Yellowstone” series — are expensive. The first cost $100 million to produce and will be followed just weeks later by its sequel. You’ve also probably seen headlines where Costner bluntly revealed that he spent $38 million of his own money to make the movies, an unusually candid revelation from a star who was forced to bet on himself. Maybe you’ve seen the box office projections, predicting that the film will take home a worrying $10 to $15 million in its opening weekend, or the reviews, which have averaged a 40 percent positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes.
What you may not know is the backstory that led to this moment. It comes at a turning point in traditional Hollywood filmmaking — where directors like Costner and Francis Ford Coppola (with his lightning rod “Megalopolis”) were having to go it alone to realize bold visions that weren’t seen as commercially viable by studios or streamers.
As it stands, the “Dances with Wolves” Oscar winner has mortgaged prime undeveloped real estate in Santa Barbara, Calif., to pay for his share of the action, and has raised additional financing for the films through mysterious investors. His longtime studio partner Warner Bros. is in the mix as a distributor for hire. However, the company is not spending any of its own money on “Horizon,” not even for marketing.
But Costner’s saga was originally sold as two films. Warner Bros. came on board as an interested party ahead of a 2022 merger with Discovery. Then known as WarnerMedia, its CEO Jason Kilar had given his then-studio chief, Toby Emmerich, a mandate: to release one “quality film” a month exclusively on streaming, according to three sources familiar with the regime. HBO Max was the fledgling service now known as Max, and millions were being spent on finding content that would help attract subscribers to compete with the likes of Netflix. (What a difference three years makes, given that streaming budgets today couldn’t be tighter as corporations struggle to monetize their platforms.)
Emmerich and his team were approaching the project as a package deal, insiders said, meaning Warner Bros. would be on board to finance both films. Costner would be a shoo-in for a straight-to-streaming movie, and the actor was a company man. Warner Bros. released some of Costner’s career-defining films, including “JFK” and “The Bodyguard.” He was also recruited for franchise properties like DC’s “Man of Steel,” playing Superman’s adoptive father. But after AT&T ended its disastrous marriage with WarnerMedia and Discovery merged with the studio, the game changed. Costner went to his new leaders Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy with a different vision — not just to give “Horizon” a wide theatrical release, but to make two additional films, bringing the total to four. The films unfold over a 12-year period, before and after the American Civil War, as a large ensemble of characters seek better lives in new terrain.
Max’s movie streaming mandate changed overnight, but De Luca and Abdy wanted to honor the studio’s relationship with Costner, sources said. The package was briefly developed under the Warner Bros., New Line banner, but the economics soon became worrisome (The New York Times reported this week that the studio has a small financial stake in the first two chapters of “Horizon.” A studio representative declined to comment, but a source close to the film said those costs are related to New Line’s development expenses.)
Kevin Costner as Hayes Ellison in “Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1″ Courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures
Costner wasn’t interested in scaling back his vision, so he had to go out on his own and find the funds. The production of the second “Horizon” project received $14 million in tax incentives from the state of Utah. In exchange for distributing the film in the U.S. and select international territories, Warner Bros. will receive about 8 percent of “Horizon’s” box office, two sources said. Costner and his backers are footing the marketing bill. Several film marketers who spoke to Variety on the condition of anonymity said the P&A spend on the film is easily $30 million, which two sources close to the situation confirmed was accurate. The studio had no comment.
Warner Bros.’ film marketing team, led by Josh Goldstine, designed the campaign in conjunction with Costner, and made some interesting changes to engage audiences. Some exhibitors sold tickets to the first two installments of “Horizon” as a discounted pair or offered free concessions to watch the sequel.
Costner himself has done a dizzying amount of promotion in hopes of capturing the audience, made up mostly of adult men who love his work on “Yellowstone” as patriarch John Dutton. That audience has propelled the show to a whopping 12 million viewers per episode in some episodes and made it the most-watched show on television. Sources argue that demographics are rarely captured in box office tracking and can, against all odds, show up and boost opening weekend numbers. Costner’s press tour has included guest appearances at baseball games and local radio hits and affiliated morning shows near military bases to connect with those crowds.
There’s a subliminal message behind Costner’s entire campaign: He’s asking audiences to invest in and sustain their own star power, in the form of bucking consumer habits and making his film a water cooler moment in the age of streaming convenience and TikTok distractions. This message has been so insistent that even People magazine is writing about it stories on how “gratifying” Costner finds the support from Warner Bros. studio
His campaign has not been as well-received as, say, that of Mr. Coppola — whose “Megalopolis” is a self-financed spectacle that occasionally borders on the avant-garde, and has been embraced as a rejection of an industry obsessed with profit and allergic to risk. Mr. Costner’s audacity may lie in the cool confidence he is projecting, despite the enormous risk to his reputation and his wallet.
Representatives for Costner declined to comment for this story. This weekend’s box office results will perhaps speak for themselves.