Kevin Costner has unveiled the first trailer for his epic, four-part Horizon: An American Saga series of films. The director held a moderated press conference on Monday to announce the trailer and shared some tidbits about the production (via The Hollywood Reporter), which he self-financed after multiple studios proclaimed the project was too ambitious.
Costner has worked since 1988 to get Horizon made, originally envisioning it as a follow-up to his other self-financed hit, Dances with Wolves (1990). After meeting resistance from studio after studio, Costner felt he had to make the film after his tenure in Yellowstone. He took out a loan on his Santa Barbara home to finance the pictures.
“When no one wanted to make the first one, I got the bright idea to make four,” Costner joked on Monday. “It grew and it grew and it grew until suddenly I realized that I just had to make it, and I had to look to myself financially to do it—which is not the smartest thing. But I count on the movie speaking louder than anything I can say.”
Horizon is a Civil War-era drama about the construction of a frontier settlement told over 15 years. Across the four movies, the encampment goes from a simple tent settlement to an established town. The first two films, slated for separate cinema releases this summer, recently completed production in Utah. The third and fourth installments have yet to be shot.
Costner crafted the film as a response to modern westerns which he sees as diluting the conflicts of the time. “We have a lot of Westerns that aren’t good too because they get simplified [but] this isn’t Disneyland. These are real lives,” he said. “People just making their way, women just trying to keep their families clean and fed…I’m drawn to that. I’m always gonna get to my gunfight, but I’m drawn to the little things that people had to endure.”
Horizon unflinchingly depicts the genocide of Indigenous tribes by incoming settlers, something Costner feels strongly about showing realistically.
“I’m ashamed of what happened—I don’t know that I’m ashamed or embarrassed—but I want to project what really happened,” he said. “There was a great injustice occurred in the West [sic], but it doesn’t minimize the courage it took for my ancestors to cut loose and go there…That’s how this country got settled and the American native Indians were crushed under this movement. They didn’t stand a chance.”
Sienna Miller, who stars alongside Costner in all four installments, recalled being heavily pregnant during the grueling shoot. “There was a lot of being buried under rubble and being shot at, and a lot of time in a very dark tunnel,” Miller recalled last month to Vogue. “There are scorpions and snakes, and it’s blisteringly hot.”
But she found inspiration in working with Costner, who knew the world he was creating inside and out. “You could ask him anything about this period in time, and he would have an answer,” Miller marveled.
With Horizon, Costner is hoping to repeat the success of Dances with Wolves, which won him Oscars for Best Director and Best Picture after multiple studios passed, forcing Costner to bankroll the picture on his own.
The first installment of Horizon hits theaters on June 28, with the second arriving on August 16. Danny Huston, Will Patton, and Sam Worthington also star in the films.
