20 Things You Didn't Know About Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 [2024]

The Making Of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1 Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter  1 has really divided audiences,   with some calling it a modern masterpiece,  while others brand it a massive misfire. So lets take a look behind the scenes, into  the making of this divisive new Western,   with 20 things you didn’t know about  Horizon - Chapter 1, such as how the   movie is secretly a prequel, why this character  is more significant than you might think, and the   reason why Kevin Costner is still optimistic  about the Saga, despite its box office woes. So the origin of Horizon can actually  be traced all the way back to 1988,   1 when Kevin Costner first started  developing a script for a Western Movie,   inspired by the true history  of America in the Old West. And the film was reportedly a  fairly conventional Western,   following two characters - one who was  very lucky, and another who was not,   finding that everything in his  life always seemed to end in blood. Now it's not entirely clear why Kevin Coster  opted to make Horizon ahead of this original   western movie that inspired it, however, the  unmade film may still yet see the light of day. Because when asked about what his  American Saga would actually include,   Kevin Costner answered,  “Four three-hour movies and,   if you like them, give me a call, and  I’ll go make that fifth one from 1988.” So in 2003, when Horizon was  still just a single movie,   2 Kevin Costner reportedly entered negotiations  with The Walt Disney Company to get it made. And this was because Kevin Costner had already  delivered them big a hit with Open Range,   so it would make sense for the studio to want to  work with the director again on another western. However, during the pre-production stage,  Costner discovered that the studio had   actually set limits on the budget, that  he felt he needed to do the movie justice. So, the director ultimately decided to  walk away from the project all together. So in the years that followed, Kevin  Costner worked with writer Jon Baird,   3 to expand upon the original script for Horizon,   developing the narrative into an origin  story for the town that the story was set in. And this took the form of an epic four-part  saga, that was a lot darker in tone than the   original movie, and sought to accurately depict a  12-year span, of pre- and post-Civil War America. As such, Kevin Costner has described Horizon:  An American Saga, as more of a journey movie,   than a plot movie, saying that “We have a tendency   to think of westerns as simple. They  are not simple. They’re complicated.” So while developing Horizon, Kevin Costner  was also starring in the hugely popular   4 neo-western TV show Yellowstone,  as the character of John Dutton. And apparently, during the  production of the second season,   its creator Taylor Sheridan, was  looking for additional writers,   so Kevin Costner decided to send him  his un-produced script for Horizon. However, it seemed that nothing came of  this, and when asked about his decision   to send Sheridan the script, Costner  said, “I don't know if there’s any   duplications there. Whether he borrowed  something, only he'd have to admit to.” Now it was never clarified what exactly Costner  was referring to here, but IndiWire themselves   noted that both Horizon: An American Saga, and  Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone prequel series 1883,   both include stories about a wagon train  set in roughly the same time period. So as Yellowstone steadily became one of  the biggest shows on TV, reports began to   5 circulate of behind-the-scenes friction between  Kevin Costner and Taylor Sheridan, which some   assumed was the reason why Costner decided to  leave the show, midway into its fifth season. However, since then, Kevin Costner has  clarified that this was not the case,   and that his decision was really  down to the increasing amount of   time it was taking to film a  season of Yellowstone, saying: Another big hurdle that Kevin Costner had to  clear, in order to get Horizon made, was to   6 find the reported one hundred million dollars  that he needed just to fund the first movie. So, Costner took out a mortgage on a 10-acre  plot of land that he owned in Santa Barbra,   and invested thirty eight million  dollars of his own money into the budget,   before reportedly gathering the rest of  the funds he needed from unnamed investors. Now it is fairly unusual for directors  to fund there own movies like this,   but it’s actually a pretty common occurrence for  Kevin Costner, who’s previously found success in   investing his own money into films, such as  with Dances with Wolves, and Black or White. So this presumably factored into  Costner’s decision to self-fund Horizon,   as he was already well-versed in the  risk and reward nature of the practice. So in his efforts to get Horizon made,  Kevin Costner came up against a whole   7 series of unforeseen issues, that made an  already difficult task that much harder. The first of which was trying to direct a film  in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic,   and during the Hollywood strikes that followed. Then secondly, his wife of 18  years, Christine Baumgartner,   filed for divorce during the  production of the first movie. And finally, despite expressing an openness to  return to Yellowstone, Kevin Coster eventually   decided that he’d had enough of the drama  and speculation surrounding his exit,   and officially confirmed that he would not  be returning to the show in the future. However, despite all of these  difficulties and distractions,   Costner remained focused and  committed to getting Horizon made. So during his long career as an actor, Kevin  Costner worked under many different directors,   8 and he himself has claimed that for the  most part, other directors are better   at the job than him, despite him winning  an Academy Award for Dances With Wolves. But when it came such a passion project like  Horizon, Costner valued his creative vision   above all else, and was absolutely determined  to direct it the way he wanted, saying: So when it came to casting Horizon, Kevin  Costner had a huge amount of roles to fill. 9 As such, in a lot of cases, he went with  actors that he had already worked with   on previous movies, including Jena Malone,  Michael Rooker, Will Patton and Jeff Fahey So one character that survived from the  very first script for Horizon in 1988,   10 was the character of Hayes Ellison, who  ended up being played by Kevin Costner. As such, the name Hayes really stuck with Costner  throughout the protracted development of Horizon,   and ended up being the name that  he chose for his son in 2009. So when it came to casting the character of  Nathaniel Kitteridge in Horizon Chapter 1,   Costner felt it would be fitting to  cast his now fifteen-year old son,   Hayes, who was keen to take on the  role, having already decided that he   wanted to follow in his father’s  footsteps, by becoming an actor. One element of Horizon that’s  difficult to find fault with,   11 is its cinematography, with the first film being  shot primarily in picturesque southern Utah. And behind the camera was cinematographer,  J. Michael Muro, who first met Kevin Costner,   while working as a steady-cam operator on  Field Of Dreams, and Dances With Wolves,   before being handed his debut as a  director of photography on Open Range. So unsurprisingly, Muro delivered some of  the best work of his career with Horizon,   doing so on a very tight schedule. 12 Another aspect of Horizon that  really impressed, was its score,   written by award-winning composer John Debney,   best known for his work on The Passion Of The  Christ, Sin City and The Greatest Showman. And on working with Costner, the composer said,  “He’s been such an inspiring leader, and his   vision for the music for these films has never  wavered, as he told me from our first meeting,   to go big with memorable themes that take  us back to the Westerns of the Golden Age.” So something that Kevin Costner was adamant  about as a director was authenticity,   13 especially when it came to the  sets featured in the movie. For instance, the western town featured in Chapter  1, was apparently as much a time capsule as it   was a movie set, with every detail being accurate  to the time period, even down to the door knobs. 14 Kevin Costner also focused a lot of his  attention into his characters, ensuring   that every one of them had a detailed backstory  to inform their personality and motivations,   despite many of these backstories never  actually being explored on screen. For example, when actress Abbey Lee  asked Costner for more detail about   her character Marigold, the director  instantly shared a detailed backstory,   about how her character was shaped by her  experiences as a child on an Orphan Train,   a real-life, controversial movement from the  late 1800’s, that saw hundred of thousands   of children transported from crowded Eastern  cities, to remote foster homes in the Midwest.  15 So Horizon: An American Saga was clearly Kevin  Costner’s love letter to the western genre   in general, but there were actually a few  films that he cited as direct inspirations. For instance, How The West Was Won, and The  Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, were apparently   both big influences on Horizon, especially in  terms of their epic sense of scope and scale. In fact, even actress Sienna Miller turned  to the work of John Ford for inspiration,   upon accepting her leading role in the movie. She also watched a lot of Sergio Leone  Westerns, using Claudia Cardinale’s performance   as Jill in Once Upon a Time in the West, as the  basis for her performance as Frances Kittredge. So when Kevin Costner finally  completed Horizon - Chapter 1,   16 he opted to premiere at the  2024 Cannes Film Festival. And after the credits rolled, the movie  received a ten minute standing ovation,   that moved Kevin Costner to tears,  which is kind of understandable   after everything that he sacrificed  to bring the movie to the big screen. 17 Now despite the warm reception that  Horizon received at its premiere,   critics left the theatre  deeply divided about the movie. For instance, many had issue with its  storytelling, such as The Hollywood Reporter,   who said: “Any of these plot-lines might have  sustained an hour of compelling television,   but they don’t add up to much in  this awkwardly stitched quilt,   which rarely provides the space for  anyone’s experiences to resonate.” And other critics were put off by its  pacing, like Variety, who said “It feels   like the seedbed for a miniseries. Much of  what happens is wispy and not very forceful;   the film doesn’t build in impact, and it  seldom seems to aim in a clear direction. But other reviewers were much more  positive about Horizon, such as The Wrap,   who said: “Horizon is big and bold and  majestic, with cinematographer J. Michael   Muro capturing those expansive Utah vistas,  and John Debney’s score making sure that the   film sounds just like the Westerns  that play in the heads of everybody.” Equally, impressed with the movie  was the Daily Telegraph, who said:   “Part of the pleasure of Horizon is the sheer,  magisterial sweep of the thing – with mountains   and buttes and mesas like these, who needs CG?  But it's texture lives in small, telling details.” So the reception to Horizon - Chapter  1 was pretty much the definition of   mixed, with Rotten Tomatoes currently giving it  a 48% critic score, and a 70% audience score. So when the the movie finally  premiered on June 28th, 2024,   18 it really struggled at the box office,  roughly grossing a worldwide total of   thirty four million dollars, against  a budget of one hundred million. Now obviously the mixed reception from  critics probably didn’t help its chances,   but it seems there were a number of reasons  why Chapter 1 flopped at the box office,   including a general lack of marketing,  an overly long run-time for cinemas,   as well as very strong competition from  Inside Out 2, and A Quiet Place: Day One. 19 So following the box office  disappointment of Horizon - Chapter 1,   the decision was made to drop Chapter 2 from  its pre-planned release date of August 16th. And apparently, this was done to give people  a chance to watch the first film on streaming   and physical media, in order to build up a  larger audience, that will hopefully show up   to cinemas for Chapter 2, following its premiere  at the Venice Film Festival on September 7th. 20 Now even after the turbulent  release of Horizon - Chapter 1,   Kevin Costner still sounds optimist  about the future of his American Saga,   especially considering that the first film has  since posted strong numbers on streaming and VOD. So for now, it would seem that Costner  is wholeheartedly sticking to his plan,   of releasing three more instalments  of Horizon over the coming months,   just as long as he has the backing to do so. Now whether these movies actually end up  releasing in cinemas is another question,   but regardless, Costner has already suggested  that if and when all the films are released,   there’s a lot of potential for them to be  converted into a miniseries or a TV show,   which will likely be of particular interest  to streaming services, and possibly even give   critics reason to reevaluate Chapter 1, when  its viewed as one part of a larger narrative. But let me know below, what are you honest  thoughts on Horizon - Chapter 1, good or bad? And while you’re here you might also  want to check out this video right here.