Anyone who thought Kevin Costner peaked as a filmmaker with his Oscar-winning "Dances With Wolves" should brace themselves for "Horizon." The "Yellowstone" star spent 30 years developing his script for "Horizon: An American Saga," which will now span four films. The first trailer has officially dropped, and it looks like the new western could be just as epic as Costner intended.
The Oscar winner wrote, directed and stars in "Horizon." He even took out a mortgage on his Santa Barbara home to help fund production in Utah. The first film hits theaters on June 28, followed by Part 2 in August. The final two parts have not been filmed yet.
The "Horizon" trailer showcases the star-studded cast, which includes former "Yellowstone" villain Danny Huston, Sam Worthington ("Avatar"), Sienna Miller ("The Girl"), Jamie Campbell Bower ("Stranger Things"), and more. In an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Costner explained what his intentions were with his new film series, which he admitted no one wanted to make. He also claimed it was much tougher to make than "Dances With Wolves," shooting just one film in half the time with a significantly larger production.
"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," he explained.
The idea of a hero with a particular set of skills he must reluctantly put to use isn't anything new, but Costner aims to give it a fresh spin by truly trying to give an accurate picture of what life was like out in the real West. The good, the bad, the epic, and the tragic.
"These are real lives. 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. So to me, Horizon was worth holding on to because I just felt like I wanted to tell it."
Based on the trailer, it looks like he's doing just that — carving out various storylines, which are all struggling in their own ways. Whether it's a mother and daughter narrowly escaping an attack on their town or a stranger in town just wanting to get away, "saga" is definitely the right way to capture everything "Horizon" is offering.
"Horizon: An American Saga" premieres Part 1 in theaters on June 28.
