Pre-Order Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1 (4k UHD) (Blu-ray) Available for Preorder (1 Viewer)

[Bryan^H]

I think we all know that but to hear YOU suggest that is very sad, surprising and disheartening.

I Think most everyone here wanted this film (and those that follow) to be a blockbuster success, and a huge win for Kevin Costner.
I can‘t believe it underperformed. But I think a large part is because of critic reviews.
The Monday after this got released I saw a dozen extremely negative reviews just viewing Yahoo articles linked (the film being racist was the main negative). It was unbelievable, as I’ve never seen anything like it. Almost like a tactical smear campaign warning people to stay away, and by supporting the film you are indeed a flawed human.

And when my local theater cut the showings in half after just one week it doomed my chances to watch it.

 

[Kevin Antonio (Kev)]

I think this film proves the old way of making westerns is over and done with. There is still a market for the genre ( in television) but most people want "modern sensibilities" in these films. If a western is being honest to its history then you would have to paint people for what they are. And it's okay on one side of that fence but once you bring in the other side it could be viewed as racist. Honestly Costners depiction of people of color seems fairly accurate but we only see so much in chapter 1. Most critics today aren't familiar with the genre or even history of the west so this film would come off as " old boomer fantasy " film and its sad. The western genre is the oldest genre of them all and it's being tossed aside once again.

 

[Robert Harris]

I've been looking forward to seeing this, as well as the second installment.

From what I've heard from people who have seen it, it's a slow start to a long project, which doesn't bother me. I don't need car chases.

As to writing off films as losses, I don't believe in it, but it seems to be the way of the business, which is an unfortunate reality.

 

[mskaye]

I Think most everyone here wanted this film (and those that follow) to be a blockbuster success, and a huge win for Kevin Costner.
I can‘t believe it underperformed. But I think a large part is because of critic reviews.
The Monday after this got released I saw a dozen extremely negative reviews just viewing Yahoo articles linked (the film being racist was the main negative). It was unbelievable, as I’ve never seen anything like it. Almost like a tactical smear campaign warning people to stay away, and by supporting the film you are indeed a flawed human.

And when my local theater cut the showings in half after just one week it doomed my chances to watch it.

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/kevin-costner-horizon-2-pulled-release-date-1236066315/

The headline expresses the sentiment in LA.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think Costner anticipated that the Yellowstone audience would follow him to theaters, but what we keep seeing a lot of in this modern era of filmmaking is that success isn’t really transferable anymore. People that enjoy an actor in one project don’t follow that actor to his next project in the way they once did, and the audience that watches lots of television content at home doesn’t overlap as much as it did with people who attend theaters. (And it’s possible that the majority of the Yellowstone audience doesn’t necessarily equate their enjoyment of the show with interest in period westerns.)

Separately from that, I think there’s always a little bit of a gate keeping faction within Hollywood that doesn’t like when people take the initiative to work outside the system. Now I don’t think the studios that turned this project down for decades were wrong that it didn’t have obvious blockbuster written all over it, but to a certain extent it’s the job of studios and artists to create content and sell it to an audience. Very few things that seem obvious hits in retrospect seemed that way at the time they were greenlit; you have to make it happen.

I don’t think the advertising on this was great. I go to the theater that I ultimately saw this film at about 2-3 times a month and I never saw a single trailer for it. My mom is an avid moviegoer whose favorite film of all time is Dances With Wolves, who works a block away from the theater, and she didn’t even know this movie existed. They may have spent money on promotion but they didn’t necessarily spend it in all the right places. I think there’s still an untapped audience for this that will find it at home.

 

[TravisR]

From what I've heard from people who have seen it, it's a slow start to a long project, which doesn't bother me.

It is but I think a better way to say it is that it's the first part of a (hopefully) four part story so it was bound to largely be setup.

 

[jayembee]

(And it’s possible that the majority of the Yellowstone audience doesn’t necessarily equate their enjoyment of the show with interest in period westerns.)

This.

While Yellowstone might well be called a western, it's definitely not the traditional sort of western that Horizon wants to be. If anything, Yellowstone struck me as a western soap opera, but more like Dallas than, say, The Big Valley.

On the other hand, Yellowstone fans certainly were delighted to watch its prequel, 1883, which was a traditional sort of western. But (a) it wasn't because of Kevin Costner, and (b) it was still TV and not a film.

 

[JoshZ]

Costner's ego and ambition got the best of him. He wanted to make a 12-hour story, but wasn't content to do it as a TV series, where it would undoubtedly have been a pretty solid hit on cable or streaming. No, this had to be a big-screen epic for him, that he basically demanded audiences commit to watching spread across four feature films. This was doomed to failure before it started.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Well, you know, some rich people spend their money on expensive cars or giant mansions or art collections or restaurant investments and no one bats an eye when they do that. I find it somewhat interesting that when a rich person decides to invest his own money into his own project, that rather than buying a fleet of cars he chooses to make something in his chosen field that no one else wanted to pay for, its treated like it’s the most ridiculous thing ever.

 

[Jake Lipson]

I find it somewhat interesting that when a rich person decides to invest his own money into his own project, that rather than buying a fleet of cars he chooses to make something in his chosen field that no one else wanted to pay for, its treated like it’s the most ridiculous thing ever.

That's only because the gamble didn't work. If Horizon had been the smash hit blockbuster of the summer, people would be saying what a genius Costner is and how smart he was to believe so much in his own material.

Francis Ford Coppola did the same thing with Megalopolis. We'll see how that one works out in September.

 

[TravisR]

Francis Ford Coppola did the same thing with Megalopolis. We'll see how that one works out in September.

Two big differences in Coppola's favor are that the internet seems to be with him & the movie and there's only one movie. Having the press largely on their side is a big plus that Horizon doesn't have and if Megalopolis doesn't do well, it's one high profile financial failure and it's done which is vastly less embarrassing than having three more to release.

 

[Thomas T]

I think Costner anticipated that the Yellowstone audience would follow him to theaters, but what we keep seeing a lot of in this modern era of filmmaking is that success isn’t really transferable anymore. People that enjoy an actor in one project don’t follow that actor to his next project in the way they once did

The star system is dead! No one goes to a movie anymore specifically because of its star the way people would automatically go to the new John Wayne western or Julia Roberts romantic comedy. Audiences today go to a movie because of its content, not who's in it. The last group of true Movie Stars (actors who get people into movies on their name alone) like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts are all over 50. Is anyone rushing to a movie today because it stars Glen Powell or Sydney Sweeney?

 

[Bryan^H]

The star system is dead! No one goes to a movie anymore specifically because of its star the way people would automatically go to the new John Wayne western or Julia Roberts romantic comedy. Audiences today go to a movie because of its content, not who's in it. The last group of true Movie Stars (actors who get people into movies on their name alone) like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts are all over 50. Is anyone rushing to a movie today because it stars Glen Powell or Sydney Sweeney?

Very true!!

 

[TravisR]

Is anyone rushing to a movie today because it stars Glen Powell or Sydney Sweeney?

Sydney Sweeney being in Immaculate absolutely got way more people to see it. No doubt that "the movie star" is different and much less important today but people like Sweeney, Zendaya and Timothee Chalamet are undeniably pulling a younger crowd into movies that they wouldn't have otherwise watched.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Is anyone rushing to a movie today because it stars Glen Powell or Sydney Sweeney?

Yes. That's why Anyone But You was a hit. It ended up at $219 million worldwide, which is great for a movie budgeted at $25 million. They did that. It went to it because they were in it and their chemistry made that movie work. It certainly wasn't the unremarkable script. And I assume that movie is also why you used their names in your question.

 

[Tino]

The last group of true Movie Stars (actors who get people into movies on their name alone) like Tom Hanks, Tom Cruise, Denzel Washington, Julia Roberts are all over 50. Is anyone rushing to a movie tod

I think Tom Cruise is the only current actor who can still open a movie.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That's only because the gamble didn't work. If Horizon had been the smash hit blockbuster of the summer, people would be saying what a genius Costner is and how smart he was to believe so much in his own material.

True but that’s not the point I was making - the point I was going for is that super rich people frequently spend their money on things that could be considered wasteful by the rest of us, and that it’s not controversial or notable in the slightest. If Costner had spent his money on a chain of restaurants (most new restaurants fail in the first year) no one would blink an eye or be critical of it, it would just be one of those rich people things. I think he did something that other rich artists should do more often, which is to invest in the projects they believe in, where the project itself is the reward, and where it doesn’t really matter if they make their money back or not. Costner was a rich movie star before he made Horizon and he’ll still be one when he finishes making Horizon. What is the point of making more money than you can spend in a lifetime if you can’t use it to pursue your passions? This shouldn’t be controversial or a mark of scorn. More people should do this. Studios lose money on movies they don’t even believe in all the time - it shouldn’t be abnormal or a negative thing if an artist chooses to embark on a project that might not make a profit, particularly when no one is harmed in the process.

I think Tom Cruise is the only current actor who can still open a movie.

I used to say that but I don’t think that’s true any longer. You kinda have to take Top Gun Maverick out of the equation because it was lightning in a bottle but otherwise, his non-franchise films haven’t had much traction at the box office in nearly two decades - even when they’ve been really good. Mission Impossible was doing well until the last one, and even that underperformed. On the strength of his name alone he’s not bringing in $100 million opening weekends. If it’s the right property at the right time, I think he can help bring attention to something but I don’t think there’s a substantial audience buying tickets solely on his name recognition anymore.

 

[Tino]

I used to say that but I don’t think that’s true any longer

Who then?

 

[mskaye]

Who then?

Christopher Nolan.

 

[Jake Lipson]

Zendaya

Challengers is a great example of this. Dune was definitely helped by its starry cast, including Zendaya, but it was also a famous preexisting novel. On the other hand, Challengers was a completely original idea with no previous public awareness and it was marketed as a Zendaya vehicle. It made $94 million worldwide for a serious, complex character study tennis movie. I'm not sure if that would even have gotten made without Zendaya, much less grossed a stone's throw from $100 million. It isn't a number on par with a franchise blockbuster, but it is a strong result for that kind of movie and demonstrates her drawing power.

There is no question that Zendaya's star power was instrumental to its success. Amazon knew this. That's why they abandoned plans to release Challengers in September among the strikes and sat on it all the way until April. They understood that it would be vital for Zendaya to go out and promote the movie in order to get her fans excited to show up.

It appears that a lot of people just weren't interested in Horizon specifically. I know a lot of people here are fans of it, and that's great. I'm not trying to take away from anyone's enjoyment. But when talking about its performance, we. also have to consider that reviews from critics were largely negative, and adult-skewing movies in particular tend to need good reviews because that audience will pay attention to reviews. I know a friend who never mentioned Horizon before reading a negative review of it in one of the trades. Then he told me he definitely didn't want to pay to go see It, but might watch it "for free" if he found it on streaming just to see how bad it was. By "free," he meant "included with a subscription I already pay for." That is the extent of his willingness to engage with the movie and only out of morbid curiosity.