“Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1” has just been released in American theaters. For its first weekend of operation, Kevin Costner’s western is already shaping up to be a financial failure.
Kevin Costner too ambitious with Horizon ?
The project Horizon of Kevin Costner is probably one of the craziest in recent years. The actor and director, notably Dancing with the wolves (1990), displayed an inordinate ambition to tell, in his own way, a part of America’s History (over a period of 15 years before and after the Civil War). The filmmaker wanted to offer a fresco that could be spread over several films. To date, four feature films have been discussed. Two were shot at the same time, and will be released two months apart (July 3 and September 11). And even before the release of the first opus, Kevin Costner began filming a third chapter, while the fourth has not yet entered production. Finally, let’s remember that for the first film, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1Kevin Costner proposed a 3-hour montage.
This kind of project is more than a rarity today in Hollywood. And one wonders how it could have been validated. Because even if, for the first film HorizonKevin Costner had to put $50 million out of his own pocket to a total budget of 100 million dollars, the risk remains high. In the event of failure from the first opus, the second already dated would go straight to the wall, and what about the third in filming then the fourth?
The first disastrous figures at the US box office
What we felt was coming happened with the first American box office figures, which were far from good. For its first weekend, Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 did not harvest that 11 million dollars in the North American market. However, the feature film was offered in 3,334 theaters (according to Variety). But the public favored this weekend of June 29-30, 2024 Vice-Versa 2which after three weeks of operation has earned an additional $57 million in revenue, and Quietly: Day 1which collected 53 million. With this disastrous beginning, this first chapter ofHorizon should therefore not cover its costs, unless a miracle occurs thanks to the foreign market.
For comparison, Furiosa: A Mad Max sagawhich was also a failure for Warner Bros., had opened with $26 million at the US box office in its first weekend. For the following weekend, only $11 million was added to the takings. Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 so do even worse. And even if the budgets of the two films are not the same ($168 million for Furiosa), the financial failure remains for Kevin Costner.
In another analysis article of Varietythe American media announces the color for the future, explaining thatHorizon “has the potential to be not only a financial accident, but also the kind of accident that unfolds in slow motion and spreads out over months“. Because chapter 3 remains in preparation, and “it is now a matter of building a train when it is already derailing“…
Find other box office figures here, as well as our review ofHorizon: An American Sagawhich is released in France this July 3.
