There is self-belief, and then there is ego. For actor Kevin Costner, those traits are indistinguishable. In 2014, during a career retrospective with the SAG-AFTRA Foundation, Costner recounted the story of receiving his SAG card.

After years of working in Hollywood to no success, director Graeme Clifford gave the young actor a break by giving him a line in his film, Frances, so Costner could receive his SAG membership. All it required of Costner was to “Say a line to Jessica Lange” to which the actor responded, “I don’t think he’d say that.” As he recalls telling Vanity Fair in 1989, “I knew Henry Fonda wouldn't have said anything, and Paul Newman wouldn't have because it didn't mean anything. It wasn't right.” From his view, this antidote signifies a conscious artist, dedicated to his craft. For the crew, it offered an early glimpse into an actor, who despite his lack of fame, possessed a self-confidence that would make even Icarus envious.

To say Costner has a well-known reputation for being difficult on set would be an understatement. In describing the actor to Entertainment Weekly in 1995 for the release of Waterworld, director Kevin Reynolds remarked, “In the future Costner should only appear in films that he directs himself. That way he can always be working with his favorite actor and his favorite director.” Three decades later, Costner remains a headline fixture in the industry, with stories of his feuds with showrunner Taylor Sheridan, who helped revitalize Costner’s career with the hit drama Yellowstone, continuing to circulate. After a public and messy divorce, and a controversial exit from Yellowstone, the summer of 2024 was supposed to mark Costner’s triumphant return to the big screen. However, things did not go as planned, as evidenced by the underwhelming box-office returns of Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 1.

Investing $50 million in a Western is risky. Launching this film as the first installment of a planned four-part series is ambitious. Spending $38 million of your own money to film the first two installments, while already greenlighting the third movie before gauging audience response—or in Horizon’s case, lack thereof— is hubris personified. Yet, that belief in self is what makes Costner one of our greatest movie stars.

When Costner gambles, he rarely loses. Maybe it is divine intervention; maybe it is a long run of dumb, prolonged luck, but reality proves that Costner’s “My Way or the Highway” approach to Hollywood stardom resonates with audiences. Whether it's his love of sports, his gift for playing stubbornly, or his wry smile that signals to audiences he may be rough around the edges, but he is a good guy. As an actor, his ability to weaponize those traits, while playing off his real-life persona creates a phenomenon so rarely seen within stardom -- authenticity.

For better or worse, as an artist, Costner is true to himself. This authenticity is palpable in the characters he portrays, lending credibility to his performances and, by extension, to the films themselves. It's why audiences believe in the sincerity of a father wanting to play catch with his son in Field of Dreams. His best roles revolve around his ability to play earnest, yet sure of himself. Ultimately, he is the perfect contradiction of a generation of American men inspired by John F. Kennedy's liberal progressive ideology, yet still harbored by a desire to be a cowboy, like John Wayne.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that Costner was drawn to telling the story of the American West in Horizon. The settlement of the Wild West is portrayed as a melting pot of Americans past, present, and future, all vying for ownership of land they believe is rightfully theirs. The film taps into classic Western tropes—Native attacks, outlaws seeking redemption, and the morally dubious actions of the supposedly righteous.

Costner, influenced by the iconography of John Ford, particularly How the West Was Won, smartly avoids the pitfalls of the Western genre. In Horizon, Native Americans are given more nuanced portrayals, and female actresses such as Sienna Miller, Abby Lee, Jena Malone, and Ella Hunt are afforded greater complexity and autonomy. As a director, writer, and producer with extensive experience in this genre, Costner addresses common criticisms head-on.

This is not to say that Costner’s approach to the West is revolutionary. In the past decade alone, filmmakers like Jane Campion, Jordan Peele, and Quentin Tarantino have taken transgressive approaches to the American West. Frankly, their narrative focuses are far more tidy than anything Costner offers in his newest film. Yet, Costner’s Horizon represents a different kind of transgressive filmmaking, not through storytelling but through the medium itself. Horizon is essentially an exercise in TV storytelling and tropes, all presented in a feature-length film. The first chapter of Costner’s four-part saga essentially acts as a pilot episode, introducing the setting, characters, and plot elements, and ends with a sizzle reel previewing the next installment. Despite being the most famous cast member, Costner does not appear until the film’s hour mark and is featured only briefly.

Leaving the theater, my immediate thought was, “If this were a TV show, I’d tune in next week.” The more I considered it, the more it made sense. Costner, a legendary movie star, has spent the past five years working in television. In the past, transitioning from film to TV was often seen as a sign of decline for movie stars. Although this perception has changed in the era of streaming services, for someone like Costner, the smaller budget of TV must have seemed like a step down compared with his experiences with Waterworld, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and Wyatt Earp.

Yet, Costner recognized the popularity he gained from his role as John Dutton in Yellowstone. Horizon seems to merge his movie stardom with his newfound TV fame. Yet, despite his fame, audiences seemingly did not want to come out to support the famed actor’s film, which only grossed $22 million worldwide on its opening weekend, which then resulted in Part Two, (scheduled to release six weeks later), being pulled from the movie release calendar entirely.

Perhaps Costner did fly too close to the sun this time. Maybe it is a combination of luck, karma, and hubris all catching up to him. Yet, despite things working against Costner at this moment, his luck has not fully run out as it was announced on July 31 that the second installment of Horizon will premiere at the Venice Film Festival at the end of August. Yet, the path for Horizon: An American Saga - Chapter 2 being seen worldwide would require either a lucky break or a person so determined in their sense of self that they would move heaven and earth to ensure that this movie is seen the way they envision it to be.

Maybe his self-confidence will pay out one last time -- or maybe this could be the self-inflicted final wound of a legendary film career brought about by hubris. At least, Costner has always done everything on his own terms -- staying true to the defiant young actor whose belief in self came before his self-preservation.

Author Bio:

Ben Friedman is a freelance film journalist and a contributing writer at Highbrow Magazine. For more of his reviews visit his YouTube channel: Ben Tito Friedman Reviews Movies, or follow him on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok @bentitofriedman.

For Highbrow Magazine

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