Summary

• Horizon: An American Saga marks Kevin Costner's first foray into leading a successful franchise after 43 years in Hollywood.
• The success of Horizon is crucial for Costner's plans to expand the Western epic into a four-movie series, a significant risk for the actor.
• Costner's past failures in launching franchises, like Waterworld, underscore the importance of Horizon's box office performance for its future.

Despite being one of the biggest stars in American cinema for several decades, Kevin Costner will still break new ground in his career with his ion project Western epic represents a big risk for Costner given how much of his own money went into financing the movie, which is planned to be the first of at least four connected movies. The series will span multiple decades and generations as it covers America's expansion into the West before and after the Civil War.

While the setting and core premise are rather familiar, Horizon: An American Saga could still yield a career first for Kevin Costner. Both Horizon and its sequel, which is set to release just a few months after the first part makes its theater debut, with the hopes that the cohesive story can mirror Costner's Western revival from 34 years ago. However, for Horizon and its sequels to truly begin a new chapter in Costner's career, they'll need to have backing from both critics and the box office.

Horizon: An American Saga Will Be Kevin Costner's First Franchise

While he's made appearances and attempts, Costner has never led a successful franchise before.

Kevin Costner's filmography is a fascinating mixed bag of critical successes and failures across a number of genres and media. But in his 43 years as an actor, Costner has never led a successful franchise. While part of that has to do with the fact that franchises were not as prevalent in general in decades past, it's still notable that Costner is one of the few leading men to never star in a series of connected films. Like Costner, some of the most celebrated actors of American cinema like Daniel Day-Lewis and Leonardo DiCaprio have never attempted to lead a franchise.

Horizon: An American Saga will be broken into two parts, which will have a very unconventional release schedule; Chapter 1 will hit theaters on June 28th, 2024, and Chapter 2 will debut less than two months later on August 16th, 2024.

However, Costner hasn't specifically shied away from them. His most recent franchise appearance came in the now-defunct DC universe, in which he played Clark Kent's surrogate father, Jonathan Kent in both Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Horizon: An American Saga will represent the first time that Costner will unquestionably be at the forefront of a franchise, although that will be dependent entirely on the success of the first two movies which release in 2024.

Horizon Must Avoid Kevin Costner's Past Failures To Be A True Franchise

The sprawling plan for Horizon will be reliant on its early success.

While the first two movies are already produced and approaching their release dates, Costner intends his robust Western epic to span at least four movies. Given how much money Costner has already invested in the Horizon movies, the production of the next two chapters will be entirely dependent on the financial success of the first two movies. For Horizon to be considered a true franchise, it will need to progress past its two-part initial story.

Kevin Costner has had brushes with franchises before, the most notable of which was the infamous 1995 bomb Waterworld. Heavily inspired by the Mad Max franchise, Waterworld could have kicked off a franchise if it had been successful. However, it made just over $264M on a budget that famously spiraled out of control to well over $170M, killing any notions of a franchise based on the post-apocalyptic action epic. Horizon: An American Saga represents a chance for Costner to redeem the failures of Westworld with a franchise based in the genre that he has historically thrived in.