`IT'S OUR HISTORY'
Kevin Costner heads back to familiar territory with the four-part post Civil War epic Horizon: An American Saga
After fits and starts stretching back decades, Kevin Costner is saddling up for his first western film in more than 20 years.
This summer, Costner, 69, will release Horizon: An American Saga, the first two chapters in a planned four-part post-civil War Western epic he first envisioned in the late 1980s.
The first film will hit theatres June 28, with Chapter 2 opening later this summer on Aug. 16.
“When no one wanted to make the first one, I got the bright idea to make four more,” Costner joked during a virtual discussion to promote the Horizon trailer.
The Utah-shot film has been a 35-year odyssey for Costner, who helped finance the film by taking out a loan against his 10-acre home in Santa Barbara, Calif.
The Oscar-winning filmmaker said the story, which he co-wrote, directs and stars in, was something he couldn't let go of over 30-plus years.
“It's hard to fall out of love. I don't do that. (Movies) that have a classic feel, they don't fall out of touch either. I think they exist in any decade. That's the opportunity we have with cinema; to make something that lasts past its opening weekend. I never banked on opening weekend; I banked on people wanting to revisit something,” Costner told reporters. “To me it was a story worth holding on to because it was a story I wanted to tell. It just grew and grew until suddenly I realized I just had to make it.”
The film, which co-stars Sienna Miller, Sam Worthington, Jena Malone, Abbey Lee, Michael Rooker, Danny Huston, Luke Wilson, Isabelle Fuhrman, Jeff Fahey, Will Patton, Tatanka Means, Owen Crow Shoe, Ella Hunt and Jamie Campbell Bower, follows pioneers who adventured into the American West after the Civil War. The movies will take place over 15 years.
“I wanted it to step away from what we usually see in westerns where there's a town that's already there. No one knows how (the town) came to be ... There's a guy comes in off the horizon, if you will. We don't know much about him, except that he has some skills that he'd like to put behind him and this town ends up needing those skills desperately. That's a formula for the western ... Too often, it's just a convenience for a hero guy to knock down a dumb guy,” Costner said. “I'm drawn to the little things of what people had to endure.”
Costner was enthusiastic as he unveiled the film's first trailer, calling the tease a “favourite part ... of going to the movies.”
“Even as a boy ... you're obviously there to see the movie you want, but isn't it kind of cool when you see what's coming? With that in mind, I did my very best to expose what's going to be a four-part saga. We all know what happens when the lights go out. Either it's something good, something average or something great. What I hope is that this is something that stays with them forever,” he said.
The three-minute spot introduces Costner's lead character, Hayes Ellison, and features a glimpse of the film's sweeping action and its ensemble cast.
“People came West, sometimes with a lot of hope, bringing their family, and others came West because they were damaged and were running away from something,” he said. “Nobody knew who each other was ... Some people got lucky and some were unlucky ... but that's how this country got settled.”
Horizon is Costner's fourth directorial effort and comes more than 20 years after 2003's Open Range. He also pulled double duty as director and star of 1997's The Postman and best picture Oscar winner Dances With Wolves (1990).
“This is by far the biggest struggle,” Costner replied when asked if Horizon was a bigger challenge than Dances With Wolves. “I shot Dances for 106 days, I shot the movie you're just seeing right now in 52 . ... I did learn a lot and I was able to use every trick in the book to try to bring this movie to ground and to bring it to an audience. And there's four of them!”
Costner, who recently starred in Paramount Network's western hit Yellowstone for five seasons, said even though the setting takes place hundreds of years ago, moviegoers can still connect with its storyline.
“Because everybody is looking for something — even today, in the relationships and what's going on at work. They're looking for room; they're looking for fresh air. And our 200-year march across this country was no different,” he said.
But Horizon will also confront America's bloody past and the horrific treatment of the country's Indigenous population who were “crushed under this movement — they didn't stand a chance.”
“I think it's a mistake to judge other people for how they had to perform in another century,” Costner said, adding in another statement that he wants Horizon to show “what really happened.”
“I don't know that I've ever come to terms with that myself. I don't know that I'm ashamed or embarrassed, but I want to project what really happened. A great injustice occurred in the West, but it doesn't minimize the courage it took for my ancestors to actually cut loose and go there,” he said. “I recognize the resourcefulness it took. The bravery it took to leave and make this march across our country ... It's our history. I love it. I know that I can enjoy watching a movie like this if I feel like I can see myself in it, and I tried really hard for that to happen.”