Many months after its deliberate theatrical launch, the already accomplished Horizon: Chapter 2 remains to be sitting on the shelf.
One of many largest gambles of 2024 was, surely, Kevin Costner’s Horizon: An American Saga. That is Costner’s ardour mission, with him having labored on the script since 1988. He even named his youngest son Hayes after the character he was gearing as much as play within the movies. However, westerns have by no means been the best motion pictures to get financed. Whereas Costner’s Dances With Wolves made lots of of hundreds of thousands and received Costner a few Oscars, his follow-up western, Wyatt Earp, was an costly misfire. Nonetheless, Open Vary made cash, on condition that it was a comparatively thrifty manufacturing. Whereas 1997’s The Postman deeply impacted Costner’s profession for a few years, the mammoth success of Yellowstone put him again on high. Nonetheless desperate to get the saga made, which might ultimately develop to 5 chapters, he guess on himself and largely financed the primary two Horizon motion pictures himself.
Certainly, it was an enormous guess, however when Horizon: Chapter One opened this summer season, it was a field workplace flop, incomes solely $29 million towards a finances that – earlier than advertising and marketing – was a minimum of $50 million. The movie fared even worse abroad, grossing $5 million. So, what occurred? Nobody can blame Costner for not doing his finest to market the movie, with him sitting for a lot of interviews (together with one with us right here at JoBlo). Nonetheless, a whole lot of the headlines from these interviews have been associated to his unceremonious exit from Yellowstone, which noticed his beloved John Dutton get killed off-screen.
Regardless of the case, Horizon was a sufficiently big flop that the sequel, which was initially set for an August 2024 launch, by no means got here out. The hearsay has at all times been that WB, which was solely the distributor of the movies, wasn’t footing the market finances for the sequel and that Costner opted to drag the film within the hopes that Horizon would ultimately discover its viewers on streaming and ultimately result in a theatrical launch.
Regardless of the case, Horizon: Chapter 2 is full, with it having been proven on the Venice Movie Competition, the place it earned constructive evaluations. A part of Chapter 3 has been shot, though nobody is sort of positive how a lot, with it being impacted by the WGA/SAG strikes. It’s presupposed to resume taking pictures this spring, though that appears to not be one thing to financial institution on till it’s identified what is going to occur to the second chapter.
So, when will we see Chapter 2? That’s onerous to say, as Costner has at all times maintained that he needs these motion pictures launched theatrically. Given how large Yellowstone has been, and the way nicely Horizon has been doing on Max, It appears possible that – if he needed – he may pivot the films to a streaming launch. He may even have the ability to persuade a streaming service to finance a 3rd movie, or even perhaps recut the entire thing right into a sequence. On condition that he shot the films flat in a 1:85:1 side ratio, he needed to be pondering a big chunk of the viewers would see the films at residence, however up to now, there hasn’t been any information on whether or not we’ll ever see the sequel. Notice that the primary movie ends with a trailer for Horizon: Chapter 2. Maybe Costner will compromise, releasing the movie to streaming, whereas giving it a restricted theatrical run via an organization like Fathom, who beforehand partnered with WB on Tremendous/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story.
Regardless of the case, it appears unlikely Horizon: Chapter 2 will get the identical type of large launch the primary movie did. But, as a fan of Costner and somebody who preferred the primary movie, I do hope it sees the sunshine of day and that Costner can in some way get the cash to wrap up the saga on his personal phrases with out compromising his imaginative and prescient an excessive amount of.
What do you assume will occur to Horizon: Chapter 2? Tell us within the feedback!
