Kevin Costner’s magnum opus Horizon: An American Saga seems to be in limbo after the first chapter of the four-part film bombed at the box office. Costner directed and financed the films himself, selling part of his estate to fund the $100 million budget. The first film, which was released in June only managed to earn $36 million.

Costner’s directorial reportedly came at the cost of his successful neo-Western TV show Yellowstone, which after clashes with creator Taylor Sheridan and the studio, he exited. While Costner has been a master of the Western genre, he seems to have fumbled with Horizon in one place where Yellowstone succeeded.

Kevin Costner Could Not Do In Horizon What Yellowstone Did Perfectly

Kevin Costner earned his Oscar for Best Director for his debut directorial Dances with Wolves, which is credited to have revived the Western genre in Hollywood. It is only the fourth Western in the history of the Oscars to have won the Academy Award for Best Picture, with Unforgiven and No Country For Old Men following it.

However, Costner seemed to have fumbled his biggest strength in his latest directorial Horizon: An American Saga. The planned four-part film was reportedly self-funded by Costner and had been a project that was in gestation since the ‘80s. However, the $100 million film (for two parts) only managed to earn $36 million, putting its future on hold.

So, why did Horizon while Costner’s TV show Yellowstone succeed? For starters, both stories were Westerns talking about rooted American culture and its clash with ‘progress’ and ‘development’. Both stories also followed multiple characters and storylines set at a changing time.

However, Yellowstone gave a lot more time for the characters to breathe and develop. Despite Costner’s John Dutton not always being on screen (and him now exiting the franchise), the show still worked because the characters had time and multiple episodes to evolve while Horizon had to compress all of that into a three-hour film.

Kevin Costner Claimed Yellowstone May Have Been Inspired By An Early Horizon Script

Kevin Costner played John Dutton in Taylor Sheridan’s Yellowstone for four and a half seasons, with clashes between Sheridan and the studio leading Costner to leave the series in the expected final season. Many have noted how Costner’s Horizon seemed to have a similar structure to the neo-Western series and how it would have worked better as a show.

However, Costner seemingly flipped the table on these observations saying that Sheridan’s Yellowstone spinoff 1883 seemed to have a wagon story that was eerily similar to Horizon in one aspect. The actor mentioned that he had given the script of Horizon to Sheridan while he was looking for writers during the second season. He said to IndieWire,

So I don’t know if there are any duplications there. Whether he borrowed something, only he’d have to admit to.

Yellowstone has previously been accused of borrowing storylines from popular Western shows and films like Dallas and even Costner’s own Dances with Wolves.

Yellowstone is available to stream on Peacock while Horizon: An American Saga – Chapter 1 is available on Max.